Embrace the Gutter

For an album dubbed "metalcore", it's hard to find many hardcore influences on this album. In a genre riddled by cheap imitations and rather non-metal musicians, The Autumn Offering bring something quite different then their predeccesors.


Now, if you've heard their first album, I must warn you that this album is slightly more melodic and the vocals are easier to understand, however there's really no "clean" singing on this album. The guitar solos are amazing and make for one hell of a listen. Instead of going on ruthless aggressive thrash influenced metalcore like Chamaira, and instead of going into emotional metalcore like Bullet For My Valentine, The Autumn Offering decide to just play metal. They don't need "1 part thrash meets 2 parts hardcore" or any other bullshit, they just play REAL metal. It's a very technical approach that makes metal different from metalcore and hardcore. Now while there is still a few similiarities, this album is far from the normal metalcore album. The sound is basically a melodic death metal, with harsh yet melodic vocals, wonderful guitars, and even some decent drumming.


As for the songs themselves, there might not be alot of variety, but there is certainly some standouts. "Decay" is an awesome track, and unlike alot of death metal, the 'decaying' part is metaphorical, not talking about decaying zombies or anything. "Embrace The Gutter" is the best song and my favorite right now. Call it 'user friendly' but just because it's simple doesn't take away from it's over-all quality. The song isn't poppy, just more catchy. There's plenty more standouts, but I felt those were worth mentioning.


All in all, if you don't mind your metal with a couple hardcore influences here and there, or if you're a metalcore fan looking for something more mettalic, then I think you'll love this album. It should also be noted that for some strange reason this album lacks a Parental Advisory, yet other albums with the same or even less profane moments are stickered. Strange, but not really bothersome to me.