| THE ACACIA STRAIN — Vincent Bennett [vocals], Kevin Boutot [drums], Devin Shidaker [guitar], Griffin Landa [bass], and Tom “The Hammer” Smith, Jr. [guitar] — have shared the video for “One Thousand Painful Stings.” The song, which features Spiritbox singer Courtney LaPlante, appears on the band’s eighth full-length album Slow Decay, out now through Rise Records. In lieu of an actual live show, the clip is a socially distanced sign of the times — featuring the band members performing in fuzzy onesies, substituting pet cats for instruments and Swiffers for mic stands, LaPlante’s living room mosh, and much more. It’s truly a hilarious (and thoroughly metal) way to cap off what has been quite a tumultuous year. Watch it here. “Having a record come out during a pandemic is hard,” says Bennett, who also directed the video. “No touring, no playing the new songs, no nothing. All of us live far away from one another, so we cannot do a cool livestream, either. We couldn’t even get together to make a music video, so we did this! Stay safe, stay sane, and stay away from each other!” Slow Decay is a beast of a record. The songs were released as seven inch and digital single drops between February 28 and June 12, along with two additional tracks, in what can only be deemed a groundbreaking and thrilling rollout. PRESS PRAISE FOR SLOW DECAY: “Stunning and suffocating… a serious contender for album of the year.” – Revolver “A genuinely inventive take on metallic hardcore without abandoning the traits that longtime Acacia Strain fans know and love, and for a band nearly 20 years into their career, that’s a pretty impressive feat.” — Brooklyn Vegan “Dynamite reminders of why The Acacia Strain are so great.” — Metal Sucks “The band furthers its maturation into a more sophisticated realm of heavy music.” — Exclaim! “Some of the finest The Acacia Strain material to date.” — Blabbermouth “It is a massive, lumbering, unstoppable force of doom-soaked beatdown the likes of which could only have been concocted by twenty-year veterans in the year 2020.” — Heavy Blog Is Heavy “At times Slow Decay feels like a brick stuck on spin cycle, rattling around the drum until it rips itself apart. That’s the point, though.” — Upset “Album Number 10 is also firmly anchored in the heart of deathcore, but at the same time has a very strong doom impact.” — Metal Hammer | 
