Album Review: The Offering – Home (Century Media Records)

Boston’s The Offering are anything but orthodox. The high-flying quartet have a way of cleverly suffusing all their influences — from black and death to heavy and modern to thrash and power to nü and hardcore — into their story-like songs. Over time (and across many refinement sessions), The Offering have developed their all-in dynamic into a signature sound.

All of the effort and time has been worthwhile as their debut album will be released on August 2nd 2019.

Easily one of our most anticipated releases of the year. The amount of promise behind this debut is scary. Will it live up to it?

It’s our pleasure to say that not only does it reach the lofty expectations we have but at times surpasses it. Home is a banger, one of the best releases of 2019 and a real contender for the number one spot come the end of year lists.

Before you press play on Home, forget what you think you know or understand about sub-genres in rock and metal. Breaking apart The Offering and putting them in one specific category is impossible. It just doesn’t apply here. That’s nothing new to be honest, many bands skirt the lines and play a myriad of styles across their respective releases. However, few do it within the actual songs!

Enter The Offering.

What we can happily and proudly call this album is a metal album and a stunning one at that.

So what’s so good about it? Where to start…

It begins with a hell of bang, the first thing being the guitars followed by the one-two punch of the drums as the tempo increases. So exciting, when the vocals do come in, we get a variation that is part clean, part fury where they cross over and step on each other’s toes constantly. It could sound messy, especially with the insane pace of the music but it works so damn well.

That deep bass thump that crops up on occasion in the background is powerful enough to loosen the bowels. A roaring thrashy guitar solo is then followed by a heaviest section of the track, pure head-banging gold.

What a start but the best is yet to come.

Lovesick delivers thrash speed and violent intensity at first but evolves into something akin to metalcore and hardcore. Layered in with some sublime clean singing and classic metal riffs, the repeating shout of “kill the beast, kill the beast” is so good.

The shredding that introduces Ultraviolence immediately gets the hairs standing up on the back of necks before the aptly titled track erupts into the heaviest groove heard so far. Wild but controlled, it’s then followed by something a little slower but just as heavy and groovy as everything heard so far. A Dance With Diana is a defining moment for the band on this record as they showcase their ability to change and shift while moving at a slower pace. It’s one of the more unusual yet still very memorable tracks on the album, almost Devin Townsend like.

The second half of the album sees Failure (S.O.S) kick some serious ass with a high work-rate drum effort and some of the catchiest hooks on the album. Hysteria then fires out classic metal highs, thrashy lows and daring melodies. All you can do is sit and marvel at how easily it switches between them. It seems genuinely effortless for The Offering even if it’s clear they’re really pushing themselves here.

It’s coming to an end but not before Glory and the title track confirm what is already known about this album.

It’s a close run thing for the best track of the album as both do wildly different things but are equally outstanding. The former’s movie-like score of an intro that explodes with both a scream and a roar playing over each other is gob-smacking. The vocal performance of this track is unbelievable but it’s backed up by a stunningly heavy guitars and drums. This is how you do modern metal…everyone take some god-damn notes!

Finally the latter, well it’s nearly 15 minutes long. If that doesn’t excite you then the breadth of what The Offering do here will. Everything learned about them across this album is showcased here in one wonderful epic. Stunning melodic lows mixed with the heaviest of heavy riffs mixed with the wildest pit-creations mixed with the most brutal side of metal all in one glorious track.

Words can’t do this track justice, just hear it but don’t stop there! While you’re at it, make sure you listen to a phenomenal album from a band that has the brightest of futures.

This what they did on their debut for goodness sake. Imagine what they can do going forward?!

The Offering – Home Full Track Listing:

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

Links

Pre-order | The Offering Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter