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OFFENDED
Dreamworld

Self-released (2023)
Rating: 9/10

After hearing their debut full-length studio album Welcome To Nowhere (2022) I stated that this young Leeds, England-based trio were one of the best new acts around, and with this second outing my beliefs have been cemented.

Dreamworld is another effortlessly created heavy rock outing that smoothly leaks into the ears. With each bite I experience it’s as if these guys are just cruising and I can only marvel at their sublime creations. For such a young band Offended exude an enormous amount of confidence, maturity and above all, talent. I guess my only quibble, and it is a minor one, is that they are coasting all too comfortably and I’d love to hear them ramp up the heaviness and snarl, especially the vocals of Carol Fernandez as I don’t believe as yet that she has reached her potential. However, as it stands Offended is a band that excites me and the world is their oyster, as they say.

With Dreamworld we get an album that runs for an hour, which is a little too long in my opinion, but again it showcases the maturity here as well as progression. The outing features eight songs, with the opening title track running for a whopping ten minutes, and although it takes a while to warm up it unravels like something The Who would offer up mixed with a metallic Blondie. The guitars of Jamie Hollis are fluid, as is the percussion from Tom Hallam, and the trio just does enough to keep us there for the long haul.

This is stirring hard rock that somehow feels light, airy and brave as the band embarks on a conceptual idea that nods towards W.A.S.P. and their The Crimson Idol (1992) opus. Meanwhile, with certain shades you get a more routine Iron Maiden spine. But Offended is more than just a metal band and one that provides succulent melodies. With ‘Coloniser’ they adopt a driving punk edge which fuses with vintage W.A.S.P., and ‘Chasing Shadows’ maintains the vibe… electrically charged and galloping. This brace of tracks are snappy, stripped back rockers, while ‘Tale Of The Medjay’ has a somewhat New Wave Of British Heavy Metal-feel before Offended embarks on another epic slow burner in the form of ‘The Sea Of Kings’, a majestic mid-80s Euro metal plodder dripping with gothic goodness and doomy vapours. It showcases the versatility of this act which can supply high quality and diverse metal, whether it’s stark loping rock (‘Madness Of Reality’) or bombastic, progressive layers (‘Lost’).

To some, this record may come as a surprise, and I for one wasn’t expecting an album that required several listens in order to appreciate its textures, but Offended have constructed a colossal heavy metal outing summed up by the steely ventures of my favourite track, ‘Through A Soldier’s Eyes’.

Offended are climbing the UK heavy rock ladder rapidly and it excites me greatly to think of where they will be in a few years, especially if they can maintain the mixture of shorter, harder tracks and the lengthier, pastoral numbers. In other words guys, don’t turn into a progressive snooze fest. Anyway, this is a fantastic album, the stuff of which dreams are made.

Neil Arnold

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