After exploring doomsday scenarios on past albums, shape-shifting metalcore heavyweights The Acacia Strain offer a vision of a distant future in an alternate reality. *You Are Safe From God Here* imagines a timeline in which humanity tries to escape the wrath of an omnipresent being run amok. The Acacia Strain vocalist Vincent Bennett calls it the “existential dark low fantasy era” of the band, which plays out in dual meanings across the songs. Bookend tracks “eucharist i: BURNT OFFERING” and “eucharist ii: BLOOD LOSS” provide a snapshot of the stark musical contrasts that permeate the album; the former short, fast, and brutal, the latter long, crushing, and featuring a mournful guest shot from Sunny Faris of all-female psych-rock troupe Blackwater Holylight.
On their self-titled debut as C.Y.M., Vampire Weekend’s Chris Baio and Fort Romeau’s Mike Greene try to squeeze as many different ideas into a collection of 10 silky smooth pop jams as possible. Alongside guests like Day Wave, Cherry Glazerr, SOLIS4EVR, and Nana, the songwriters and co-producers find a middle ground of psych-pop, electro-funk, disco, krautrock, and pretty much every other genre under the sun. “Life of Mine,” which features Day Wave, is a shoegaze-leaning cut built around a melodic bassline and a pulsating drum line. “Catania” is built for long nights on the dance floor, with arpeggiated synths slowly building before a rock groove brings the song into the early hours. In lesser hands, this many different ideas and styles jam-packed into a tidy package would overflow in excess, but with Baio and Greene at the helm, they create something both endlessly curious and sturdy in its unique vision.
