The History and Lineup:
Daytona Beach, home of NASCAR, Beaches, babes, and…The Autumn Offering? Who would of thought that such a great place would bring you a Hard Rock/metal/southern rock 5 Piece band full of riffs, thunder heavy drums, deep bass, great songs, vocals from hell...the whole package. They released this album in July 2004 on Stillborn Records. Fast forward a little over a year and The Autumn Offering signs with Victory Records. It is the new year and we start out strong with Victory’s reissued version of REVELATIONS OF THE UNSUNG! The current line up is …
Dennis Miller – Vocals *
Matt Johnson – Guitar *
Tommy Church - Guitar
Sean Robbins – Bass *
Nick Gelyon –Drums *
[* = I’ve talked to that band member on AIM]
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The Review:
Let’s start with the first single off the album, shall we? Revelation, is the second song on the album and starts with guitars and drums. Then we get to the growling voice of Dennis. At around :50 the song breaks down to a soft part for about 10 seconds. This is the first song that shows how these guys know when to give the short bursts of clean vocals in a song. Guitar solo at 2:53 then it sounds like an acoustic guitar domes in with a simple drum pattern. This part is soft but they bring back the hardness in time from some more growling. They could had cut about 10 second off though. The opening song, The Great Escape starts out with what sounds like a train. The guitar work is very good in this song. The vocals have the dirty aspect in this song, but you can understand the vocals. At around 1:40 the drums and guitars are by themselves and it finishes the song very well.
This should be the next single in my mind, if they release another one from this CD, Last Desperado. Drums start this out alone for 2 seconds then the vocals hit. You get the fast lyrics like the others songs then they slow it down a little bit. The then go to the clean vocals in a soft part of the song right before a minute in. They are spreading the lyrics out some and not keeping the vocals fast and that’s a good thing. The song is about a solider going to battle. Then they have a different type of vocal and its around 1:45. The sticker on the CD said if you like Darkest Hour, Slayer and Shadows Fall you will like TAO, well I heard some reference of Darkest Hour vocals near the end of this CD.
In Doomed Generation it starts out as some wind blowing harder and hard till the vocals start. The drums are fast and hard and really start out the song great. I hear duel vocals for the first time on this CD, and it really makes this song better then it already was. They turn from short bursts of clean vocals to longer bursts and it fits into the song. Some of the vocals aren’t 100 percent clean though which helps it out. This is just like a chant saying we are the doomed generation. I can see a band doing a cover of this song in 15-20 years. The end of Doomed Generation leads into Homecoming. The drums and guitars to start out the song are one of the best song intros on the album. The fast vocals come back full strength on this song. There is a quest vocalist on this song and he does a great job. At around 2:00 they have one beat of a drum and guitars going. Then they have a slow part that leads into a clean vocal part. This may not be the longest song on the album, but this will surly be the epic that everyone will remember. The drums and guitars get their share again before we go into the growling vocals.
The rest of the album is the same basis of Revelation and Doomed Generation. You have the metal and Shadows Fall influences mixed with the southern roots of the band. The bass is the hardest part to hear in the songs but that’s normal in metal. The must downloads to really get the feel of the album is Revelation, Doomed Generation, and homecoming.
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Final remarks:
Victory records has signed a great band if The Autumn Offering keeps this up. The only bad part is there are only 10 songs clocking in at around 38 minutes. The video of the single Revelation caught my attention, and I waited for the reissue of the CD so I can get the extras while getting the CD. In this case the extras was the Revelation Video and a slide show when the sticker said there would be a victrov show included but I’m not mad, I can see most of the Videos that would be on it from my other victory DVDs I got with CDs from the bands signed onto Victory. I will give this CD a 4.5.
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The results(out of 5):
Vocals – 5
Guitars – 4.5
Bass – 4
Drums – 4.5
1. Great Escape – 4.5
2. Revelation - 5
3. Calm After the Storm – 4.5
4. Last Desperado - 5
5. Deflowered - 4
6. Doomed Generation – 4.5
7. Homecoming - 5
8. Bonds in Which We Break - 4
9. Shadows of Betrayal – 4.5
10. Beginning's End -4
11. Revelation [Multimedia Track] - 5
