Funeral For A Friend
Casually Dressed & Deep in Conversation

THE REVIEW

The last two releases from the Welsh band Funeral For A Friend, which were not particularly exceptional in quality, led me to revisit their first LP, "Casually Dressed And Deep In Conversation", an album considered by many to be their masterpiece (to which I would personally add the subsequent stylistically different, "Hours").

In 2003, their recipe was simple: hardcore + pop punk + melodic rock + emocore. Although this type of albums has been in abundance in recent years (to the detriment of novelty and quality of the offering), they distinguished themselves from a flat market with twelve very good tracks that highlight the group's technique. An above-average singer, capable of effortlessly transitioning from screams to melodies in a sweet clean, a lively, energetic, angry (when needed), and varied melodic section, and a respectable rhythm section allowed this "Casually Dressed And Deep In Conversation" to launch the group into orbit.

There are several pivotal moments in this work. The opening track "Rookie Of The Year" has the ability to immediately get stuck in your head thanks to its structures that are now heavy, now sweet and airy, but never overly complex to assimilate.

The same can be said for the much more aggressive "Bullet Theory" (which uses a clean chorus to win over the listener), the beautiful and ever-changing (in structure) "Juneau", "Escape Artists Never Die", and "Your Revolution Is A Joke", entirely dedicated to Matt Davies' voice, which is expressed here in all its grace with a very touching and incisive clean interpretation.

It's important to note that other tracks also present a more than high quality, and the selection I made was purely dictated by subjectivity.

In summary: good technique from the musicians; tracks that are at times intense, at times poignant, at times angry, but always easily assimilable; well-crafted and written lyrics: with these characteristics, Funeral For A Friend delivers a more than good emocore album, where they do not invent anything new (to be clear) but distinguish themselves from the multitude for their personality, taste, and style. The change of genre in subsequent albums denotes, if nothing else, maturity in the band, a desire to break away from a now worn-out genre, venturing, album by album, into alternative rock that unfortunately can only be considered valid up to "Hours", but then gets lost becoming excessively verbose, full of clichés, sugary, and falsely "heavy".

It's a pity, therefore, for the later albums. In the meantime, however, let's enjoy the work presented here, to which I don't give a perfect score only because, as mentioned, in the end, it doesn't introduce anything new (and perhaps contains a couple of lapses in tone), but it comfortably stands as one of the best albums of its genre.