If you’re like me, and for your sake I hope not, you’ve been looking forward to a follow up to The Offering’s stunning 2019 debut Home. Its mix of power, trad, and metalcore would have placed well on my AOTY list, but I wasn’t writing for the site yet. It was thoroughly enjoyable and remains.
Now we finally have its follow up, Seeing the Elephant, and it pains me to tell some of you that it leans heavily into the metalcore. I know that may be a turn off, but it’s your loss because this might be just as memorable as the debut.
“WASP,” which is the leadoff track and one of the singles, sits at over 7 minutes. It’s straightforward metalcore, but Alex Richichi’s diverse vocal talents are on display, especially when the slow part comes in at around 3 minutes. If you couldn’t tell where these guys stand, their political leanings are on display, even in the first track, with the repetitious “God is dead and disappointed,” and the overall lyrical content. So, if you happen to not enjoy left-leaning politics, you’ll probably need some salve for your butthurt.
Moving quite a bit forward, track 5, “Seeing the Elephant,” confronts our police problem in this country. If you don’t think there is one, ask yourself what the bully, asshole jock in high school did with his life. He’s probably on the police force and hasn’t changed. Anyway, this track is more of an interlude with all clean vocals and a clear underlying message, which quickly brings up a strength of the album, which I’ll mention more in the conclusion: the pacing.
“We want the boomers dead… Sorry, mom,” begins “Flower Children,” which is track 7. Despite what I at first found was a cringeworthy refrain, this track is one of the most diverse. It’s a driving, energetic 6-plus minute song, with several excellent lyrical passages, such as “You hippies all turned into Christians, free love into incest.” As expected, with that refrain, it’s a takedown on the boomers and their lack of self-awareness and caring about the future for their children. It’s easy to focus on the vocal performance, but that would be underselling the true diversity, including a breakdown to get the crowd moving with about 3 minutes left. Considering the message and the country the boomers have left, yeah, “We want the boomers dead…”
The last song I’ll mention because I don’t have a ton of room left, is of course the closer, “Esther Weeps.” With baby cries amongst the clean guitar tone in the beginning, you’d be right to assume there’s a message here. It’s mostly mid-paced and contains the message I have been trying to get across for so long to Conservative women around me: Republicans only see you as objects.
Despite it being 10 songs and 52 minutes, this album never feels long. As mentioned above, the pacing is excellent, with several shorter songs and interludes. Those interludes are never pointless. There’s a message. The message The Offering gets across on their sophomore album, is that they’re an incredible, young, diverse American metal band with a bright future.
