Funeral For A Friend - 'Casually Dressed & Deep In Conversation' (Infectious)
4/5
By: Toby L
The comical fact about this present-day, torrential, angsty-metal malarkey is just how much the crunching, churning, noisy guitars sound almost identical to some of the thunderous, awesome cheese-slicing riffage of the 'Maiden - or, to the criminally uninitiated - Iron Maiden.
But theatrical-rock aside, and we're brought on to the tonez and texturez of Wales valley-purveyors Funeral For A Friend. OK, so they don't do pleasant in the designated 'band-name' dept., yet there's something gruellingly inviting to the FFAF elite - no, not the 'Maiden-isms, but namely, 'da melody. Yet, this ain't no pop, granddad - this is heavy, noisy... for the emphasis of drama, emotional... stuff.
The 'Friend are also kings of crafting an urgent, searing, instantaneous cacophony of f**k-you drums, fairly innocuous lyrical-themes (maybe it is emo, after all...), frantic, impassioned vocals and killer-guitar noise in nigh-on each and every turn of a lick, whilst marking out their nearest contemporaries as the Stateside-born Thursday, simply through the sheer pretension of the titles ('Bend Your Arms To Look Like Wings', 'Waking Up Inside My Own Paralysis', anyone?).
When they cotton on to a rousing house-rumbler of an anthem too, they conduct the matter with such immediate, engrossing aplomb and genuine spirit, you're hard pressed to refuse their diligent, rollicking allure ('Storytelling', or messy, brutal massiveness of a raucous 'Bullet Theory', not counting defiant, standout and top-20 single, 'Juneau'). And when it's simply harder (the gritty backing-yells during a piano-tinkling 'Moments Never Faded'), fiddly ('Red Is The New Black'), or epic (the concluding 'Novella', restrained 'Your Revolution Is A Joke'), the combo seldom fail, if only falling susceptible to an occasional mimicking of their peers.
This as their debut-album in consideration, however, and - admittedly - few fare so early on with such righteous, delinquent assurance and accomplished ambition. A few more collections of these such things, and the 'Friend could easily find themselves at the forefront of this oh-so very angry world of rock, 'Maiden-aided, or not (as the case may well prove).
Artists in this article: Funeral For A Friend
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