The Acacia Strain, ‘Wormwood’ — New Album

Seeing that the Acacia Strain are too white for black metal, we're guessing the band didn't decide to title their new album, 'Wormwood,' after the Marduk record of the same name that came out last year. But on July 20, the Acacia Strain will, indeed, release 'Wormwood' to the masses, frontman Vincent Bennett revealed in a June 5 YouTube post.

The band previously announced that it would reveal the title of the album once a fan guessed the correct title in a contest on Twitter. After the Acacia Strain revealed just just two letters, a fan named Eric Thorgeldsen guessed the correct title.

'Wormwood' is the follow-up to 2008's widely acclaimed 'Continent.' "We worked just as hard if not harder on this album as we did on 'Continent,'" Bennett said. "We took an entire block of time off of touring and our lives in general to focus 100 percent on the creation of 'Wormwood.'"

Wormwood is a species of plant used to create the hallucinogenic alcoholic drink absinthe. Wormwood is also the name of a star which crashes to earth and poisons the water. We'll leave it to you to guess which meaning the Acacia Strain draw from for the album, but it's probably not the same one Marduk embraced.

"Where we normally write a record with a theme already attached to it, this time around we wrote a record and the theme developed as we went," Bennett said, refusing to reveal the exact theme. "We wanted to do something that was still Acacia Strain, but broke away from the mold that has been struck by all the bands these days that we seem to get grouped in with. All the songs have their own dynamic instead of writing an album filled with like-sounding songs. This is the heaviest record we have ever written, and these are the most personal lyrics I have ever written."

'Wormwood' was recorded at Planet Z Studios in Hadley, Mass. with Zeuss (Hatebreed, Chimaira, Shadows Fall) producing, mixing and mastering.



'Wormwood' track list

1. 'Beast'

2. 'The Hills Have Eyes'

3. 'BTM FDR'

4. 'Ramirez'

5. 'Terminated'

6. 'Nightman'

7. 'The Impaler'

8. 'Jonestown'

9. 'Bay of Pigs'

10. 'The Carpathian'

11. 'Unabomber'

12. 'Tactical Nuke'



Acacia Strain tour dates

7/13 -- The Tabernacle -- Atlanta, GA

7/14 -- House of Blues -- N. Myrtle Beach, SC

7/15 -- The Fillmore -- Charlotte, NC

7/16 -- Sonar -- Baltimore, MD

7/17 -- Sound Academy -- Toronto, ON

7/18 -- Royal Oak Music Theatre -- Royal Oak, MI

7/20 -- House of Blues -- Boston, MA

7/21 -- Starland Ballroom -- Sayerville, NJ

7/22 -- Electric Factory -- Philadelphia, PA

7/23 -- The LC Pavilion -- Columbus, OH

7/24 -- Eagles Complex -- Milwaukee, WI

7/25 -- The Pageant -- St. Louis, MO

7/27 -- Verizon Wireless Theater -- Houston, TX

7/28 -- The Palladium Ballroom -- Dallas, TX

7/30 -- Mesa Amphitheatre -- Mesa, AZ

7/31 -- Palladium -- Los Angeles, CA

8/1 -- The Warfield -- San Francisco, CA