Bad opinions • Page 624

metal is extremely not for me

 

Funeral For A Friend were probably the best poppy post-hardcore band just for the strong Iron Maiden influences alone. Sad they couldn't get a huge following in the US and certain parts of Europe. Not the most consistent band in their last few years, especially vocally, but at their peak no one sounded like them.

 

Memory and Humanity is a top 5 Funeral For A Friend album for me. I think it's solid and their most diverse.

 

I've been listening to metal for quite a good while now yet I have never once moshed. Not because I don't want to (mostly), but because I have no idea what one actually does in a normal mosh pit. Do you literally just jump around bumping into people? Are you supposed to stay grounded and just shove and get shoved? How do you go about actually entering the pit??? HELP.

 

feel free to drop these metal takes off in the official metal thread

 

this thread is bad for my me(n)tal health

 

mosh or be moshed

 

I speak the Queen's, my fair boy!

 

Apparently the whole Maiden connection with them was really overplayed. I believe there's an interview somewhere where Matt admits as much and explains that they really annoyed Bruce Dickinson by taking the piss while they were touring with them.

 

I LOVED Funeral for a Friend growing up. Casually Dressed and Hours were fantastic, the next two had some decent song but weren't great, and then they really found form again with Welcome Home Armageddon, Conduit and Chapter & Verse.

I'm hoping that they do a reformation at 2000 Trees next year, that seems the place for UK bands who want to get back together.

 

Also, Power Trip are fucking rad.

 

I think Welcome Home... was massively underrated. They started to slide for me after that. Chapter and Verse was poor as far as I'm concerned.

I'd be very surprised if they reformed. They'd been slipping down to smaller and smaller venues, Matt's voice was not sounding great on the records anymore. I also saw their final show and it felt very much like they were all moving on with their lives now.

 

Yeah Welcome Home Armageddon was such a return to form. I wish they would've kept that sound a little longer. Conduit was good in retrospect, it's just a shame Matt's voice rapidly declined afterwards. Chapter and Verse was a such a disappointing way to go out. In some interviews, they just seemed out of it before it even came out.

It was so sad to see them struggle with their newer stuff to the point they kept doing anniversary tours. Reminds me of Finch and the way they were cursed by What It Is To Burn's popularity. People just moved on once they changed it up.

And sadly I agree that I don't see them reforming anytime soon. I doubt Matt could even keep up with their old stuff anymore.

 

I personally liked the songs on Chapter and Verse, but Matt's vocals were definitely not great on it.

I just wonder if they would be tempted to do something in a few years, with how many other bands of their era are doing anniversary shows at 2K.

 

I can see them perhaps do something for their 20 years as band in 2021 or the 20 year anniversary of Casually two years later. It would be perfect if Darran and Ryan come back for those. My dream would be a new album, an actually great one, with those original members but it's not realistic eh.

 

Yeah all the full album tours seemed a little sad - like that was the only way they could keep going. It was a bit like how nobody gave a shit about Hundred Reasons after their debut so they had to just keep playing that.

In retrospect, I genuinely think Conduit might be the second best FFAF album. It felt like the band at that point had given up trying to find the Casually Dressed formula and just wanted to make a hardcore album in the vein of their favourite bands. And it worked.

 

I'd go:

Casually Dressed (10)
Hours/Welcome home Armageddon (9)
Conduit (8)
Tales Don't Tell Themselves (7.5)
Chapter And Verse (7)
Memory and Humanity (6)

 

Did FFAF do many full album tours? The only one I remember was their farewell tour, where they were alternately doing Casually and Hours.

Hundred Reasons were super unlucky. Second album tanked and then they were in a world of record label related hate. Kill Your Own is an absolute monster and unlike a lot of stuff from the time, has aged well.

 

Just looked it up - they did some one-off Casually Dressed shows around 2010 and they did an Hours tour a couple of years before they split up. They released live albums for both.

 

I guess I just didn't bother with those. :p

 

One of the only Hundred Reasons songs I knew was “The Perfect Gift” and that song bangs

This conversation also reminded me about that band Vex Red and how much I loved them in middle school

 

I remember watching a bit of the Hours live DVD and finding a bit depressing. Matt's voice sounded pretty blown-out and the new drummer's style just didn't work playing the old stuff.

Listen to Ideas Above Our Station, their debut. It's brilliant.

 

No no no.

I’m from Queens, NY.

Therefore I speak the real Queens English.

 

I think I listened to that live album once on Spotify and it was so poor that I didn't do it again.

 

Hundred Reasons should have been bigger. Many of these 00's UK post-hardcore bands didn't have luck unfortunately. It seems like that scene has been getting more success this decade with the likes of Decade, Young Guns, Lower Than Atlantis, Don Broco, Deaf Havana, Marmozets, ...

Though all of these bands had to drop their early sound and move in an alt rock/pop rock-y direction to survive.