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Album Reviews
Album review: Funeral For A Friend – Welcome Home Armageddon (Distiller Records)
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 11 March 2011
Since their inception in 2001, Funeral For A Friend have gone through a few transitions. Building a name for themselves during the era of ’emo’ music, a tag which they were unfairly lumped with (although one of their most popular tracks, ‘Roses For The Dead’ does feature a video with a young outsider contemplating suicide), they’ve gone from guttural screaming metal to soft-as-a-marshmallow conceptual rock.
On ‘Welcome Home Armageddon’, the Welsh quintet seem to blend the two styles together. The record begins solemnly with ‘This Side Of Brightness’, reminiscent of ‘History’ on the ‘Hours’ album, and segues into ‘Old Hymns’, a sledgehammer of a song that could easily be mistaken for a recent Architects release. Their usual standard of musicianship is still present; the guitars are chuggy and harmonious in equal measure, but there is something amiss. Singer Matt Davies, whose vocals on previous works have been, occasionally, nothing short of wonderful, seem to have regressed. He sounds as he did when Funeral were just beginning to breakthrough, unrefined and decidedly adolescent.
Still, Funeral’s ability to create music to headbang and sway to has not entirely dissipated. Both ‘Owls (Are Watching)’ and ‘Medicated’ have pretty melodies to shut your eyes to, whilst retaining the punchy, viscera of previous early works.
While the album may not be up to the standards of ‘Hours’, it is clear that Funeral For A Friend have not completely lost their touch. JJB
Physical release: 14 Mar
