The Acacia Strain has kept themselves in headlines since December 2019 with the release of their surprise EP It Comes in Waves. The band then released Decay as five surprise 7" releases, followed by the news they'd release an album called Slow Decay on July 24.
Guitarist Devin Shidaker recently spoke to Kill Your Stereo about the series of releases and why The Acacia Strain released them that way. Shidaker said surprise releasing It Comes in Waves allowed the band to release new music with no expectations, while the Slow Decay release essentially put the new album in front of people longer.
"I think the biggest factor going into our release decisions for the last two releases has been the prevalence and domination of streaming over all other methods of listening to music. First week sales aren’t important like they once were, so there’s no reason to stick to “traditional” methods of building hype for a release date that will come, go, and then be forgotten. It Comes in Waves was an experiment, and we figured we would experiment with a surprise release as well. That experiment worked well for us, and the reaction was great. With how different that record was, I think it would have been a mistake to promote it like a traditional release, because it gives people a chance to create expectations in their minds, and when those expectations aren’t met, they don’t like the record. There were no expectations for It Comes in Waves, and I think that played a huge role in us getting the positive response that we did when it was released.
"With Slow Decay, we had a somewhat similar approach, but also threw in an idea that Griffin had about releasing a series of 7” records instead of just plopping out a full length. Splitting them up this way has helped the release in a few ways: First, it lets every single song get attention; there are no b-sides, no filler tracks. Second, when new songs come out every month, you go back and listen to the previous releases to see how they fit with each other, making it more likely that those songs become favourites. Third, with the spread out release, you keep your music in people’s heads for a longer period of time than just that first release week, and I think that helps to give the listener something that they will be able to enjoy for a long time. Believe it or not, none of our plans were based around the COVID-19 pandemic, it just kind of fell in place that way."
Read the full interview here and pre-order Slow Decay here.
