Funeral For A Friend Band • Page 12

Revisited Casually Dressed today and man does that album still slay.

 

Finally saw them live for the first time when they were opening for Parkway Drive a few months ago in Leipzig.
I have to say, it was pretty disappointing. The sound was horrible and Matt's voice is totally shot. Probably a totally different experience when you see them in the UK and everybody's there for them and singing all the words, but the Parkway Drive crowd really didn't give a damn.

That said, I relistened to their whole discography (a few of their albums are not on Spotify but I have the original CDs and therefore FLACs of them) and I have some thoughts:

With Casually Dressed, they really hit the nail on the head and had a huge hit in the scene, it had these amazing sing along choruses and huge riffs at the same time. Still holds up really well.

With Hours, things became even more melodic and that's why I actually prefer that album over Casually Dressed. Their drummer's screams were always good, but at that time, I prefered other bands heavy vocals (Underoath come to mind).

Tales Don't Tell Themselves is probably my favorite album of them, controversial, I know, but relistening to it really cemented my opinion that they actually are amazing Pop Rock songwriters, with some really good guitar riffing tucked into those songs.

Coming out of that album they had their fan base kind of split in half - they had fans of their old, "heavy" stuff with riffs and screams, but also had fans of their newer stuff, people that were probably more into Alternative/Emo bands like Jimmy Eat World.

Memory and Humanity (big bummer that this is not on Spotify) is the other "odd one out" album of their discography, in my opinion a perfect continuation of the Tales Don't Tell Themselves sound. It had its heavier moments, but they kept their melodic sensibilities intact - by now I know that my favorite part of FFAF's songwriting are their melodies and not their heaviness and riffs (although the riffs are always so on point, don't get me wrong).

Reading interviews of that period, the band's long time bassist left them and they had a new bassist (that later became their second guitarist). I don't have the specific interview (or podcast?) at hand, but their singer Matt told the interviewer that the band didn't really know in which direction they wanted to go for the next album. With their new bassist being a fan of band and having an outside perspective of them, he told them that it's the heavy stuff that they do best. Riffing and screaming. And that's the direction they went for with Welcome Home Armageddon (and actually all of their later stuff except maybe that final album).

So my thought experiment is this: How amazing could have been another one or two albums that would have been more in the vein of Tales and Memory (the melodic alternative rock bangers) instead of goin the Metalcore heavy route?

My current favorite song of them after listening back to their discography is probably this one:
Funeral For a Friend-Ghosts - YouTube

(This became more of a write up instead of some quick thoughts )

 

weirdly enough i think WHA is far more melodic than M&H. the lack of melody in M&H is one of my biggest issues with it

 

I'd argue M&H is full of melodies, but tons of them are wrapped in a boring package.

 

I remember the singer doing a "Rank Your Records" thing a couple years back, in which he brought this up. He said, in hindsight, he was super proud of Tales but when he pondered about the evolution of the band overall, he would have put it out under another moniker. Regarding Memory, he was very direct by saying he would've scrapped it. Seems like his heart wasn't in it for that type of sound anymore?

 

Songs that I don't think get enough love in their discography are the ones from their Your History Is Mine complications. Top tier vocals from them.

 

Always thought it was a missed opportunity to not utilize Gavin's vocals more after he was featured this much on those four songs.

 

Like, Gavin's part in the bridge of this one is a discography highlight

 

Definitely agree with Gavin's vocals being a real highlight in those songs and also totally agree with the fact they should have utilised him more. At the time I would have loved an album's worth of quality songs like these! Shame they were put onto a complication and didn't really get the love they deserved as they are some of my favourites from their whole discography.

 

yeah that was it! Yeah I think M&H came out shortly after Tales and it was a super rushed production IIRC. Also, they got dropped from their major label after Tales.

Loved those 4 songs they put out when Gavin joined the band. Wrench is a top FFAF song for me. WHA is still a great album, it was just too technical, too calculated, too much metalcore for my taste if that makes sense.

 

Yup. Everything after that was a disappointment cause they didn’t utilise Gavin enough (at all) for me

 

I haven't spent a ton of time with Tales or M&H, but it's hard to see how melody was at all lacking on the first two releases. My perspective would be that everything they put out in the aughts was very melodic; the leads and complexity just steadily declined and made the music overall more boring. Obviously WHA was a big reversal in that regard, and IMO is their 2nd best release.

 

not saying that the first two releases were not melodic, they definitely were. Huge choruses. I probably just like their melodic songwriting sensibilities more in the "Alternative Rock" format, which may just be my overall genre preference when it comes to this band (although they are known for their other stuff). I totally get that Matt thinks it would have made sense to put out Tales under a different moniker. Always a hard decision when you already have a huge fanbase as a band. But I'm glad they took the risk and we have a killer album for it. Although not exactly loved by most of their fans.

 

it's interesting that they didn't use him more. His band Hondo Maclean had some really good songs:
The Truth; The Fiction | Hondo Maclean | Palm Reader Records (bandcamp.com)

I also just found this album on Spotify which apparently came out in 2020. Someone named Kyle Smith is singing, don't know him.

 

the four YHIM songs are maybe my favourites in their discog. perfect evolution of the M&H sound without treading old ground, they're so good

I'll still argue Memory has a bunch of their best hooks though. Rules and Games, Die Like Mouchette, Burning Tree and Waterfront? all winners

 

Maybe I Am is the one for me. That hook is huge

 

I like this band. Didn’t know they had a thread. Hours and M&H are my faves.

 

Honestly, Conduit is so underrated. Album is short and just goes hard. Really fun listen.

 

I think Conduit's one of their best. It's like they stopped caring about re-finding the Casually Dressed formula, and wrote a record entirely for themselves.

Apparently there's a version of that album with Ryan drumming.

 

Exactly. It's like they just had fun.

 

I just watched this and wow, that is so sad about Matt's vocals. The instruments on the other hand are really tight, and the drummer's screams are as good as ever, so the lead vocals are so disappointing.

 

Damn, that performance is rough from Matt. He didn't sound great just before they broke up before but I was hoping the time out would do his voice some good but yeah that is sad to watch, especially when the rest of the band sound better than ever.

 

Welp the set was just made private. The comments were overwhelmingly negative so it'd be sad if it played a part in it being pulled

 

I get it, they're going on tour in the UK soon, and this pro shot of one of his probably worst vocal performances is surely not helping ticket sales
edit: hopefully doesn't matter, it's surely sold out almost everywhere

 

EP. 254 - Funeral For A Friend: 'Casually Dressed and Deep In Conversation' | 20th Anniversary with Ryan Richards & Darran Smith