Released: Feb 19, 2013
Genre: Deathcore
Label: Prosthetic Records
Number Of Tracks: 6
This is the best contractually-obliged deathcore rarities EP you'll hear all year. No, really.
Money For Nothing [EP]Featured review by: UG Team, on february 21, 2013 1 of 1 people found this review helpful
Sound: Firstly, a warning: The Acacia Strain don't want you to buy this EP, because it's being released by their old label without their consent. You've got to hand it to Prosthetic Records for their sense of humour in calling a cheap B-side collection "Money For Nothing", but band-label disputes are never fun and rarely interesting. What may be interesting is this little time capsule of old songs, recorded between 2006 and 2009, which takes us back to the days when people loved, hated or otherwise cared about deathcore.
Truth be told it's not the most versatile of styles, but the Acacia guys were among the first to do it and these songs do have a bit of wiggle room. The previously unreleased title track breaks into southern twang and metallic hardcore stomp from the base of monotonous chugging while "Brown Noise", from the "Dead Walk" sessions, gets straight into bed with Killswitch Engage and harmonises like there's no tomorrow. They're quite proficient at weaving other influences into their core sound (it'd be very tedious otherwise) but it's not hard to tell that some of these are B-sides. Aside from "The Hills Have Eyes", an uncompromising and incredibly intimidating rework of a "Wormwood"-era track, they're all lacking guts. // 5
Lyrics and Singing: Vincent Bennett's deep, overdubbed roar is most at home when he's got the support of a hideously downtuned and dissonant breakdown behind him. He flourishes on traditional bruiser "Terminated" for that very reason but his voice, even if not exactly to everyone's taste, has seen little change in the three years which feed this EP. // 5
Impression: As a collection of bits and pieces "Money For Nothing" is quite effective but bits and pieces, especially in this small quantity, do not need to exist as a listening experience. We know why it does though, and I suppose we know now why the band oppose it. This is a fans-only job if I ever saw one but the biggest fans will know to keep hold of their pennies until they can spend them on a proper release.
Just tragic, it shows the parallel between what counts for album worthy music these days, considering the only thing really lacking from these songs compared to their album material is better mastering and less compression on the drums.
Not to mention the problems with the music itself, but its all heavily apparent if you've heard even 3 songs by these guys.
i pronounce the "h" in herbs and i'm american/welsh. It's like the world thinks all of america are stupid ignorant hicks or something. "erbs" who the hell says "erbs".....also this comment in general was random as hell, how did we go to acacia strain to you complaining about people saying "erbs" lmao also would like to point out that silent letters do happen from time to time, but i'm sure herbs is not one of these cases though. I regret writing this cause i know this was not needed XD
Am I the only one that laughed out loud at 0:51? It's like they hired Maylene And The Sons Of Disaster to write that riff for them because it wasn't a breakdown.
![Money For Nothing [EP]](/reviews/images/10_10558_42437.jpg)
Not to mention the problems with the music itself, but its all heavily apparent if you've heard even 3 songs by these guys.