Funeral Diner is a relatively unknown hardcore band with a darker side. They combine calm, clean riffs with heavy, distorted octave chords. I picked this up at the same time I picked up The Banner when I was being a vulture at my local music store when it was closing. So, I've had a hard time finding out too much about them. Their website isn't working and both of the sites for the record companies don't put band information on them, but you can buy a few EPs of Funeral Diner if you wish. This one is currerntly sold out, but they plan to re-release it on 10" (for those of you who love records as much as I do.) It will have new artwork and a new song as well. I will put the link at the end of this short review.
Members:
Danyael Bajda
David Mello
Matthew Bajda
Andrew Radin
Seth Robert Rabb
To start this EP, we have
...And The Beast Shall Be Made Legion. It starts with a low, clean riff and then another higher riff over that, with some drums that sneak their way in. After a while there is some keyboard effects that give it a whirling, celestial feel. Another great addition of effects to this song are the chimes. It's perfectly dark and calm at the same time. One thing that this band is great at doing is building up and then ripping the song apart. It isn't as prominant on this song, but it is definately a great instrumental to start out a three song EP.
After twenty-odd seconds of empty space on the first track,
The Wicked rolls in with a little faster paced, double guitar intro. Then it really breaks into it and the singer starts screaming. Very raunchy and very powerful. The rest of the song doesn't let up at all, except for a drum fill later in the song. Of the two songs with screaming, this is the weaker one, but still rather good.
Now, to finish this fourteen minute EP, there is the six minute
End On 6. It starts with another clean intro, with strummed chords. The second guitar plays three distorted riffs over it, then stops, and does it again. There is some singing in this song, but most of it distorted, so it sounds like screaming almost. Good bass grove in the intro. There's a lot of good tempo changes in this one, more so than the others. There's only one part where it goes from being hardcore to clean where I find it to be a little weak. But the rest of the song is great. The flowing clean notes between progressive hardcore riffs with screaming is superb. The end of this song makes it sound almost like they would be playing it live, because it builds up and ends with a final scream from the singer.
As I said before, this EP is currently out of print, but they plan to put it out on 10" with new artwork and a new song, which I will probably not have the pleasure of owning. But the artwork is alreading nice on this EP. The CD itself is pretty cool too. Since it only needs space for three songs, the rest of the CD is clear and there is some scribbled red writing on the picture. Very nice. This EP receives a four out of five. Now here is the link to one of the sites, you might have to dig through them to find the Funeral Diner EPs. [url]http://www23.brinkster.com/sorryrecords/[/url]
