Review: The Acacia Strain – You Are Safe From God Here
The Acacia Strain’s latest record “You Are Safe From God Here” crashes into the listener’s home like a meteor forged from the band’s own bile. It’s heavy as advertised and it occasionally feels like the band is swinging the same sledgehammer at the same nail, just with fresh rust.
The album’s title promises sanctuary from divinity, delivering instead a hellish tour of corporeal torment and spiritual rejection. Opener “eucharist i: Burnt Offering” sludges in on heavy dread before erupting into chaotic layers of doom, hardcore blasts, and pinch harmonics that mock any notion of salvation. Songs like “The Machine That Bleeds” and “I Don’t Think You’re Going To Make It” seditiously dismantle religious benevolence, blending misanthropic lyrics with unrelenting aggression, with the vocals emphasizing a world where pain festers unchecked.
Musically, The Acacia Strain wade through genre sludge without synth crutches, relying on raw guitar tones, earth-shattering blasts, fuled by a heavy solid production. “Aeonian Wrath” haunts with apocalyptic heft, its doomy harmonies accommodating Bennett’s darkest screams, while “Sacred Relic” revels in repetitive sludge, turning slowly into escalating fury. The 14-minute closer “Eucharist li: Blood Loss” shifts through grief’s stages with clean tones and emotional fissures, offering rare respite before heaviness reclaims the throne.
For all its punishing immersion, the record stumbles on pacing and innovation.Some songs deliver end-times soundtracks effectively, yet the lack of dynamic respites turns the runtime into a endurance test. Reiteration, a band hallmark, shines in “World Gone Cold”‘s malicious desolation but grates when breakdowns feel interchangeable, as if the machine bleeds the same oil every cycle. Lyrically channeled and horror-infused, it probes humanity’s recesses without over-the-top gore, but maturity hasn’t fully escaped staleness. It’s cohesive, yes, but not revolutionary.
“You Are Safe From God Here” reaffirms The Acacia Strain as extreme music’s bleak architects. It’s not their pinnacle, but as a masterclass in unrelenting, visceral heaviness, it crushes skulls and lingers like existential smog.
