The Autumn Offering -- 'Fear Will Cast No Shadow' [review]

The Autumn Offering - Fear Will Cast No Shadow
Victory Records (10/30/07)
Metal



There's this new "sound" prevalent on the metal scene these days: the music with an old-school metal feel, that incorporates a newer hard-rock sound, with vocals more akin to Axl Rose or James Hetfield, than the usual death/hardcore stuff on which the heavier bands are relying. And don't forget plenty of guitar solos.

Somewhere between Trivium, Atreyu and Avenged Sevenfold lies The Autumn Offering. And while the aforementioned groups are getting all the attention, there's really no reason The Autumn Offering isn't right up there in the mix. In fact, the band has one thing going for it that the others don't -- it still has a raw edge to the music that gives it this air of dangerousness.

On Fear Will Cast No Shadow, the band's full array of talent is on show. There's the technically proficient guitar work permeating "The Castaway" (one of the year's best metal songs, hands down), the insanely catchy vocals on "Silence and Goodbye", which is eerily reminiscent of Trivium's "Dying in Your Arms", and the melody twisted around a metallic core on "A Great Distance" is fantastic.

But while the band does a good job with the melody and straightforward metal, it's just as comfortable with the more extreme ends of its sound. Even with the deathly growls on "A Great Distance," the straight-forward assault on "Crown Yourself a King, Kill Yourself a Queen," or the rapid-fire title track, nothing is so out of left field that it sounds out of place. Suffice it to say that that is a massive problem for a lot of bands attempting this type of juxtaposition (usually leading to the abandoning of one of the angles in the mix).

This isn't the most original release of the year, but it puts The Autumn Offering on the high end of the spectrum for bands with a similar sound. Fear Will Cast No Shadow is a solid release, end-to-end, sure to make fans happy and earn plenty of new ones, too.

Arise & Ruin -- 'The Final Dawn' [review]

Arise and Ruin - The Final Dawn
Victory Records (10/30/07)
Metal



Arise and Ruin likes its metal heavy, in the vein of classic Sepultura or Slayer -- only replace the thrash undertones with a more intrinsically hardcore approach, and you basically have The Final Dawn.

This is the band's debut album, but it's surprisingly tight. That may be due to the fact that they had recorded most of the album before, but after signing with Victory decided to re-work most of the material into what is presented here.

"Not a lot of people get the chance to make changes to a full-length, and we were able to make those kinds of major changes on our first record," bassist Ben Alexis points out in the band's press material.

The result is a brutal, in-your-face, systematic metal attack. Clocking in just over half an hour, there's little filler on The Final Dawn. Chunky guitar riffs and blistering blast beats weave together with screamed vocals that come across more aggressive than abrasive (a welcome change from the genre's usual fare).

The best song on the disc, "End of the Road", spills out of the speakers with a bludgeoning force. But there's some underlying melodic guitar work throughout the song that gives it this added dimension, propelling it to something much more than a simple metal anthem. This melody really shines toward the end of the song, so much so that it's hard not to have this one song on repeat.

Of course, that's hardly necessary. Everything on here is a blunt assault -- the simple is short enough to avoid becoming repetitive, and the longer songs have enough layers to keep them interesting time and time again.

Other notable moments include the ferocious guitar work on "Amid Devils", the epic soloing on "Pale Horse", the machine-gun assault of "In Life" and the gutteral howls on "Fear Itself" (another killer track).

Arise and Ruin is one of those bands metal fans should be excited about. This is a more than adequate debut offering, so it'll be interesting to see where the band's headed. It's a wide open future for such a young act.

AC/DC -- 'Plug Me In' [DVD review]

AC/DC - Plug Me In [2-DVD set; also available in 3-disc special ed.]
Columbia Records (10/16/07)
Unrated
300 minutes



Plug Me In isn't a documentary or biography, but it does offer a glimpse into the history of one of the world's most notorious heavy metal bands. The DVD set is an anthology of live performances, organized chronologically and separated by AC/DC's two most notable eras: the Bon Scott years, and the band's current and longest line-up with Brian Johnson on vocals. And spanning almost 30 years of the band's touring, there's more than enough footage to keep fans entertained.

The first disc features performances from 1975 through 1979. Most of the video is clear, though there are more than a few grainy shots. The sound is always clear (if not always crisp), and there's a nice mix of classic songs sprinkled throughout.


The second disc, with footage from 1981 through 2003, is the longer of the two. The video progressively gets better in quality the closer the material gets to present time (which makes sense).

The beauty of this set is watching a band go from underground sensation to world-wide phenomenon. The growth of Scott as a frontman, the development of guitarist Angus Young into the face of the band, Johnson finding a place in the band and successfully filling Scott's role and making it his own in the process—it's all here in its gritty glory.


The bonus features aren't half-bad either. There's a handful of classic interviews that probably haven't seen the light of day since the '70s when they were first recorded (some great stuff with Young and Scott from the early years). There's a good interview with Young and Johnson addressing the latter's place with the band following Scott's death. There's a nice sound check of "Gone Shootin'" from the band's VH1 Studios performance in London from 1996. There's even a crazy clip of the band performing with the Rolling Stones from a 2003 tour, along with a Beavis & Butthead animated opening from the band's 1996 tour.

The video: Everything seems pretty clean, considering some of the source material. It isn't so polished that it looks out of place, but not so raw where it's hard to watch. Out of the 40-plus performances, only one stood out for particularly poor video. The best of the bunch might be a three-song set from the Entertainment Center in Sydney (1996) where the video is taken directly from the live screens at the venue (the footage broadcast above the stage for those in attendance). Everything is presented in full-frame (except possibly for two songs from Germany in 2003 that were letterboxed).

Sound: Nothing special as everything is forced through in stereo, but it all sounds great.

Extras: The set is designed with a video game theme, which looks pretty cool, especially the opening menus. Each disc features a sort-of scrapbook of old newspaper clippings and concert paraphernalia. The most interesting feature is the "create-your-own playlist" that lets you pick the order and amount of songs you want to view, and then watch your creation.

There's only a couple of problems with this set. Apart from a place and date, there's no way to know, at least from the information provided, why each set was selected for this collection. "T.N.T." comes from the band's notorious performance at St. Albans High School in Australia (pretty rare footage). The 1979 performance of "Highway to Hell" was the first time it was performed live in concert. The set from 1979 was one of Scott's last shows with the band. There are a couple of intros with the later material to set the stage for the performance (like the Moscow show). There's also a couple of times where the timing of a particular song's performance could be questioned (most notably the "Thunderstruck" performance from 2003; there had to be a better shot at this song from the early- or mid-'90s when Johnson's voice was a little more powerful).

Other than that, there are plenty of classics on here: multiple versions of "Highway to Hell", "Whole Lotta Rosie", "Live Wire", "You Shook Me All Night Long", "Back in Black", "Stiff Upper Lip", "Hells Bells" and so on and so on. Add in some amazing Young solos, and more than enough bluesy rock 'n' roll to fill a jukebox, and you get an idea of what this set has to offer. Plug Me In is a great collection for longtime fans, or good for someone interested in seeing one of metal's strongest outfits proving its worth decade after decade after decade after decade

Nights Like These -- 'Sunlight at Secondhand' [review]

Nights Like These - Sunlight at Secondhand
Victory Records (10/16/07)
Metal



Victory Records would have you believe Nights Like These is a genre-bending metal outfit, but the truth is band has a perfect, raw, atypical underground metal band feel to its music. And that's nothing of which to be ashamed.

The band comes across as an obscure, everyman aggressive outfit. The metal is thick, heavy and assaulting. The guitar is chunky, the drumming relentless, the vocals seething. And when the band goes for the hardcore breakdown, like on "Black the Sun", it throws in the slightest amount of melodic singing to temper things.

The high points are definitely here. There's a blistering machine-gun assault on "Samsara". The melodic closing of "Claw Your Way Out" shows the band has a little depth to the full-on metal attack, as does the instrumental curveball "Collective Unconscious". The band utilizes an interesting guitar effect on more than one occasion to close out a song (sort-of-high-pitched riffing) that's another interesting departure to the norm.

The only real negative is that the constant metal/hardcore attack becomes tiresome at times. This is especially perplexing given the various tools the band has to work with on display throughout the album. Whether that means mixing up the play list or incorporating a more diverse approach to each song, I'm not sure. So there are times when the songs feel like they're droning on a little too long, even though they're only four minutes long.

Sunlight at Secondhand would be a stronger offering if the band had picked a direction. Either keeping with the heavy-handed metal onslaught, or choosing to incorporate an abundance of style to each track. This in the middle approach only leaves those on each side of the fence wanting more. In the end, the band crafted a good release that could be better.