Music

The Autumn Offering – Embrace the Gutter

By Adela Brito

Monday, August 14, 2006

‘The Autumn Offering’ returns with a second album, Embrace the Gutter. With this sophomore effort, especially in the middle portions of the album, the five-man band from Florida seems to be developing a style of its own.

The band: Dennis Miller on vocals, Tommy Church and Matt Johnson on guitar, Sean Robbins on bass, and Nick Gelyon on drums. The group shares lyric and music duties on the eleven tracks. The vocals, although most times undecipherable, express an outrage at a number of things, mostly the lack of substance present in our culture. These feelings come through on the guitars, at times reminiscent of G N’ R, and are confirmed by reading the lyrics, which are included for the listener’s convenience.

Three tracks stand out on the new album. The title track has a catchy chorus that had this writer, with lyrics in hand, hit repeat to take a second listen. Track 5, ‘Ghost’ has a great guitar groove in the middle. Just when it feels like the songs is about to end, the guitars kick in stronger with a haunting riff that appropriately fits the song title. Embrace the Gutter concludes with the aptly-titled ‘The Final Cut’. This instrumental tune has an orchestral Metallica feel to it. The last minute contains a soothing melody (for heavy metal) with one final guitar trashing that brings this album to an end.

Other notable guitar moments appear in ‘No End in Sight’ and ‘One Last Thrill’. At the halfway mark of the latter, there’s a 20-second Spanish guitar kind of groove that works nicely. More of these variations on the guitar would have made this already strong guitar album more appealing to this writer.

For more on the band visit: The Autumn Offering