The Acacia Strain ā You Are Safe From God Here Review
By Dear Hollow
I can pinpoint the moment The Acacia Strain went from the poor manās Meshuggah to āexistentialā deathcore ā seemingly without changing much. It all occurred with 2014ās Coma Witch, which as a whole, was that traditional hardcore-infused deathcore beatdown you would have expected from predecessors Wormwood or Continent. But then the closing track did something a little different ā āObserverā showed an ambitious, albeit imperfect, twenty-seven-minute track full of the bandās signature breakdowns and misanthropy ā but put together with a distinctive ambiance and strong transitions. The Acacia Strainās songwriting chops would then be put to the test in 2019ās experimental flirtation with post-metal and doom It Comes in Waves, and fully realized with 2023ās suite Step Into the Light and Failure Will Follow.
You Are Safe From God Here has its moments of doom and post-metal atmosphere and songwriting, but it feels like the spiritual successor to 2020ās Slow Decay ā colossal, dense, and pissed off. The Acacia Strain weaponizes doom and sludge in its devastating guitar tone that swallows listeners whole, guided by Vincent Bennettās husky roars and Matt Guglielmoās rabid percussion ā all for the service of a more explicitly anti-religious stance. The album title and its tracks reflect this, although Bennett has stated that the idea of āGodā has more than just religious connotations: basically, anything that rules a listenerās life, this album offers a safe place from it. In many ways, the album feels a bit like a fusion of Step Into the Lightās brevity and Failure Will Followās ambition ā weaponized to be Slow Decayās spiritual successor. You Are Safe From God Here is the hardcore/deathcore heavyweights continually firing on all cylinders, although The Acacia Strain remains hindered by a few habits.
While the one- to three-minute bruisers populate the track list, closer āEucharist II: Blood Lossā feels like an adherent of the bandās long-form content. This proves to be the most ambitious and the most divisive moment of the album, its almost fourteen-minute length comprising a huge chunk of the albumās thirty-three minute runtime. Featuring vocalist Sunny Faris of hard rock/doom outfit Blackwater Holylight, it wavers between mountainous riffs and Bennettās commanding roars and ambient placidity and Farisā vulnerable croons (not unlike iRis.EXEās performance in āPillar of Saltā). A highlight of dynamic songwriting, it nonetheless suffers from the thorn in The Acacia Strainās side: production. While the rest of the tracks are so swallowed in downtuned ridiculousness (positive), the negative spaces of āBlood Lossā highlight the snareās glaringly compressed and synthetic tone, while the stunning lack of filth belies its dense guitars. A truly frustrating chink in the armor for The Acacia Strain, whose sound is constantly evolving yet is constantly let down by its sterile production.
Blessedly, the groovy short-form tracks that comprise the majority of the tracklist remain unfuckwithable. The Acacia Strain rides the line between speedy blastbeat-guided hardcore sprints and the down-tuned monolithic dirge bruising that have you wallowing in tonal abuse ā driven by Bennettās formidable vocal attack. Intentionality is the name of the game, mindless breakdowns and ominous tones anchored to a strong foundation of groove, feeling like organic progressions rather than the stereotyped beatdowns shoehorned into existential-core crises. The more hardcore-adjacent rippers offer momentum (āThe Machine that Bleeds,ā1 āA Call Beyond,ā āAeonian Wrathā), the sludge-steeped tonal seepage allows down-tuned reveling (āAcolyte of the One,ā āSacred Relicā), but the groove-infected tracks prove to be the real winners (āMourning Star,ā āHoly Moonlight,ā āWorld Gone Coldā), balancing dynamic movement between swallowing sludge and raging hardcore fluidly. These tracks feel like an improvement from Step Into the Light in nearly every way: denser, faster, more haunting, and more pissed off.
On almost every level, You Are Safe From God Here is The Acacia Strainās best album. Retaining that hugeness they are renowned and hated for in equal measure, while fusing its more experimental styles into a cohesive whole guided by a singular theme, the deathcore veterans show willingness to experiment without sacrificing their brand. However, the bandās contradicting proclamations of filth and sterile production do not do it any favors, declawing some of the more vicious numbers and dropping the facade for its more manufactured pieces ā keeping the band from the greatness of which they are so capable. That being said, You Are Safe From God Here is a banger for the better.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: N/A | Format Reviewed: STREAM
Label: Rise Records
Websites: theacaciastrain.bandcamp.com | youaresafefromgodhere.com | facebook.com/Theacaciastrain
Releases Worldwide: October 24th, 2025
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