It’s funny how bands tend to describe their music these days. It’s somehow an attempt to already state oneself as unique, whereas I think you should not decide that by yourself The Autumn Offering describe themselves as ‘heavy metal and melody –rich rock & roll’. Ok, if you want to, but to be honest, I think that already says everything.

The music sounds very nice, with two guitar players that know the definition off synchronizing. Despite the heavy riffs that we know from bands like Chimaira and somehow Caliban, the different loops are fast, strong and complex, but do not loose the sense for melody and speed. An important factor in this band is the drummer just like the two bands I mentioned above. He varies between double and single bass very nice, but unlike Chimaira the songs are more fluid instead of separate riffs.

Then the vocals, I dislike them a little bit. Although his screams are very strong, I think they’re forced too much, and it actually becomes a little bit frustrating after a few songs. Another consequence is that the sound gets limited a bit, so the description as mentioned before is wrong and in my opinion, hardcore fans should be mostly pleased with this record.

What about the melodic parts? Well, they are present but in a strange way (like the second song ‘Revelation). Sometimes they fit, but most of the times they’re included into the songs just with a specific goal in mind, adding clean vocals and guitars, instead of writing great songs. And that’s a pity, because on the one hand I see the potential but on the other hand we’ve got a record that has been made with the idea that the result should at least contain, well ‘heavy metal and melody –rich rock&rollish songs’.

Maybe the upcoming record can prove that The Autumn Offering is able to come up with better songwriting, because just combining different (excellent) musical influences with a good production is no guarantee for a great record.