Funeral have never made a bad album. They've made different and varying albums, that's for sure, but bands such as Thrice have proven that's not a bad thing. But Funeral seem to be back-tracking a little...
Casually Dressed and the music they wrote around then was heavy but melodic. You could sing and scream to your hearts content. Hours followed and the melodies were out in full force. There are some amazing songs on that album. At their pop peak, Funeral wrote Tales Don't Tell Themselves and you could tell they were slightly unhappy with the result. Or maybe just some of their fans were. Once again, it wasn't a bad album, and there's some excellent songs on there. It's not my favourite though (that award is closely fought between Casually Dressed and Hours. Oh? Didn't you know? There are Simon Lee awards now...)
At that point the band did an about-turn and started getting heavier again. Memory and Humanity ensued and it was pretty good. Better than Tales but no Hours. Members started leaving, to be replaced by members of Hondo Maclean. Hondo are, I am assured by my very Welsh friend, a hardcore band from Wales. And this is where Welcome Home Armageddon comes in...
Welcome Home is a heavy album. It's not so heavy that I'm fleeing into cupboards to escape the growls (which has happened. I saw Cancer Bats and Parkway Drive on the same night one. I was recovering for weeks.) My alarm-bells went off when I heard the first track that was released from this album a couple of months ago. 'Front Row Seats to the End of the World' bored me. It's as simple as that, and I was hoping that the rest of the album wouldn't follow in it's footsteps. Unfortunately it did.
Funeral for a Friend are meant to move you. Damn that sounds gay. But you know what I mean. Their music works because it's passionate and aggressive, followed by swells (yes, that's the best word) of melody that lift you up, soar and then plummet back down into that pit of angst. They've had the word emo attached to them in the past for a reason, and not in the bad way.
Armageddon lacks this soaring. The melodies full flat. Sit me down and ask me to sing a song from any of Funeral's previous albums and I could. Complete with guitar parts and bass lines. Not all at the same time. I'm listening to Armageddon now, and if I turned it off, I don't think I could sing a single bit back at you. It's just not that memorable.
But I don't want to end on a downer. Jumping back two sentences, there's an important point. I'm now on my fifth or sixth play through of this album. That means it can't be bad. I can guarantee I'll listen to it a lot more after this as well. Maybe Funeral have just changed. Maybe they've moved on. I'm not sure what we expected when half of the band has changed. But they're still making good music. Maybe it's just not the music we knew once upon a time.
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