On paper, Welsh quintet FUNERAL FOR A FRIEND can barely put a foot wrong where this reviewer's concerned. After all, they tick boxes like 'hard-working', 'perma-touring' and 'commitment' and have worked up one of those enviable live followings which – on effort and sweat alone – is surely well-deserved.
All good stuff, even in these cold'n'grasping 21st Century days, so it's such a shame they have to spoil it by making records to celebrate these attributes. Because as soon as 'Kicking & Screaming' announces itself with the subtlety of a nuclear shelter being heaved through your sitting room window, it's depressingly clear that after five years of hard graft, FFAF are still resolutely adhering to their patented set-on-stun guitars, oncoming headache drums and keening vocals. Indeed, you're a better man than me if you can tell this one apart from any of the curiously-titled hits peopling their first album, which (as their press releases proudly reminds us) was released all of five years back this month.
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Business as usual, then. Angsty metal meets Emo-core, nothing more and nothing less. We weren't expecting a sudden hip-hop departure or anything, but while Funeral For A Friend doggedly persist this way, the best this writer can offer them is distant admiration. Certainly nothing approaching unconditional love.
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