The Offering, ranging from Boston, recently suddenly popped on my radar with a pretty rad lyric video for one of their singles of the debut full-length ‘Home’. Their mix of several styles grabbed my attention and they seem to radiate an energy and grooviness that is something I absolutely love in my music. The fact that on top of that they are releasing their first proper album via a metal powerhouse label like Century Media, holds a lot of promise and expectations.

Straight from first track ‘Waste Away’ you get some guitar riffs and sounds thrown at you, combined with a stomping beat that you can easily find in established acts like,for instance, Slipknot. But then they really surprise you when there are no screaming or growling vocals introduced, but rather graveled melodic and soaring vocals that remind me slightly of what Avenged Sevenfold used to deliver. Though later on, there they are: growls, screams and everything in between. Alex has a damn impressive vocal register from which he can muster up anything on a whim and switch between different styles in a matter of seconds. Throw on top of that a blistering guitar solo with a cool short rhythm change afterwards and you get a groovy and dynamic track that pulls you straight into this album.

And that’s exactly the red line through this whole album: it’s dynamic, versatile and damn groovy. Second track ‘Lovesick’ kicks off like a groove monster in the veins of Lamb of God or event Pantera, but still with those typical Avenged Sevenfold soaring vocals in the chorus that could possibly even fit a power metal track. The very rhythmic, almost rapping vocal part really gets you hyped up to shout along to “Kill the beast, kill the beast”. ‘Ultraviolence’ leads you via some guitar fiddling and a deeply grunted “Ultraviolence” into some hard-hitting, very Slipknot sounding, chunky riffs that should get anyone pumped up. The vocals are ever impressive again, the rhythm changes often without losing any of the speed and the solos are scorching hot.

They continue the whole album with this strong level of music and engaging dynamics. I still have to bring up a couple of tracks that stand out to me even more than the rest. First of all there is ‘Failure (S.O.S)’, the track they reeled me in with. Not just with their pretty cool lyric video like I mentioned earlier. The start of this track introduces surprisingly dissonant sounding guitars, bringing a black metal vibe to their music. They later on switch it up again to their more groovy side, bringing the dissonance back on regular intervals. A super dynamic track that I simply can’t get enough of! And just when you think The Offering is all about relatively short, groovy and quite easily digestible metal tracks they throw the title track at you: an almost 15 minute long song that basically showcases everything The Offering has to offer (get it?). It has shifts in rhythm, melodies, chunky grooves, vocal harmonies with clean and soaring vocals but also with some of the most frantic, harsh vocals I’ve heard on this record. ‘Home’ reminds me of some of the epic lengthy songs Avenged Sevenfold provided us in the past.

The Offering feels to me like one of those bands that could make it big. This is how Avenged Sevenfold would’ve sounded if they had managed to combine their more harsh past with their melodic present. Their debut ‘Home’ showcases what they’re all about and it tastes like more. They really hit the mark already with as good as every single track and you may wonder how they could improve themselves still. The Offering, however, comes across as a band that can’t sit still and stay stagnant. I’m having high hopes for this band and looking forward what is still going to come from their direction in the future!

Release date:
Label: Century Media Records
Tracklist:

1. Waste Away
2. Lovesick
3. Ultraviolence
4. A Dance with Diana
5. Failure (S.O.S)
6. Hysteria
7. Glory
8. Home