Review Summary: A concept album about fishermen, by Funeral For A Friend? You must be joking. Unfortunately not...
When Funeral For A Friend first burst onto the UK underground music scene in 2002 there was great optimism. Here, it was thought, is the band to bring post-hardcore into the mainstream. Their 2003 debut Casually Dressed And Deep In Conversation lived up to the hype and in 2005 they spread their horizons with the more metal influenced sophomore effort Hours. With their latest record however the band have evolved almost unrecognisably from the band that was causing such fervour in 2002 and 2003, they were the first band ever to appear on the front of Kerrang! magazine without having released an album. Even on their debut album they sprung a few surprises and they have never been a typical punkmetal band but on this concept album, made up of tales about a fisherman lost at sea, they have lost something they couldn't afford to lose - their rockability.
Whatever you said about their first two records one thing that had to be admitted is that Funeral For A Friend did rock, quite hard. On Tales Don't Tell Themselves the band have attempted to remould themselves as serious hard rockers - there's no hint of teenage angst on this record. They've failed. The album is made up of sub standard songs that try all too hard to really rock but end up falling apart halfway through. Whenever you feel the band is really going to explode sonically and you expect the decibel count to soar through the roof it just doesn't happen. This doesn't make Tales Don't Tell Themselves a total failure. 'Into Oblivion (Reunion)' is one of the bands best songs and a perfect opener for the album. 'The Great Wide Open' is good enough and the two parter 'All Hands On Deck: Raise The Sails & Open Water' is slightly epic but there's nothing here that really pushes FFAF into the arena proposition they clearly are desperate to be. This record may earn the band new fans amongs the indie kids but they've chosen to go down the wrong road with this album.
DOWNLOAD
1) Into Oblivion (Reunion)
2) The Great Wide Open
3) All Hands On Deck: Open Water
