This reviewer personally found Welsh quintet FUNERAL FOR A FRIEND's previous EP rather too overwrought for convincing consumption, but this time around "Juneau" provides us with three and a half minutes of buzzing melodic angst that's harder to shake off than midges around summer flowers.
Yeah, it's massively in thrall to ye olde DC-inspired emo-core, but "Juneau" - like recent W&H discoveries All-American Rejects - exudes more than enough raw power to rip the balls off the genre's fave staples like Jimmy Eat World and their snivelly peers, with a keen ear for yearny melodies, unlikely harmonies and the requisite shouty bits and intricate tempo changes.
|
So yeah, these Welsh boys do seem capable of squaring up to their US rivals after all, if they can keep this up. AND they've got a sensitive side, too, as singer Matt Davies suggests when he mourns: "Yet I'm nothing more than a line in your book" and the band (temporarily) bring it right down. See, they're old softies underneath the screaming as well. We knew it all along, didn't we?
|
