Yesterday I noticed that I only needed to rate one more album in order to get to the 200 albums rated mark, so I decided to find an album to listen too no matter if it was the crappiest thing on Earth. So when I entered Hot Topic, placed the free-album-listen-headset on my head, and pressed for “Tales Don’t Tell Themselves” to start playing, I was ready to face anything no matter how bad it was. As it turns out, this album was an excellent way to get to the 200 mark.
I’d never heard about Funeral For A Friend before, for all I knew they could have sounded like Opeth or like Nickelback. So when I started to listen to the album I was pleasantly surprised and relieved to find that they were my kind of music. I found myself listening to a beautiful melodic post-hardcore sound that captivated me till the very end. This album is hypnotic; it makes you stick around till its over because you want to know how it ends.
The first track
Into Oblivion (Reunion) is a perfect album starter that gives the listener a taste of what the whole album is about. It makes you feel like if you just started a trip across the night sky and you are just moving, taking it all in. “Tales Don’t Tell Themselves” is all about melodies, and the perfect blending of the music and the vocals. This is done so perfectly that the album just flows in a way that makes it a pleasure to listen.
One of the things most impressive things about this album were the vocals. I can’t find flaw in them; Ryan doesn’t try to go overboard, he just stays in tune with the music and hits the notes flawlessly, and the backup vocals compliment him perfectly. The vocals are clean, beautiful, melodic, and fit perfectly with the dark-bright ambience of the album. This is noticeable in the second track
The Great Wide Open. The song is faster and more upbeat than the first, but lyrically moves into a darker tone. Here is a piece of the lyrics:
“Spitting from the bridges, like a bird perched on a branch,
I’m wilting like a tree, that will never let me breathe”
The guitar work of the album has a simple greatness to it. There are no wall breaking solos and no overwhelming riffs, and to some this might make them boring, but they do their job in an excellent manner. Even though they are not groundbreaking, the guitars are ever present and noticeable. They help keep the flow of the album and all around create great beautiful music. On the other hand, the drumming is one of the low points of the album. Even though they keep the rhythm of the songs, they are hardly noticeable, don’t bring anything extra to the album, sometimes get monotonous, and just could have been better. The best you’ll hear of the drums will be in track seven
Out Of Reach. This song is driven by the guitars and the drums rather than the vocals; the album could have used a couple more songs like this one. Track number eight
One For The Road has a great balance of the two elements, part of it is driven by the vocals and part of it is driven by the guitars. This track is breathtaking; the instruments are played perfectly, the vocals are all in tune and have so much emotion into it that it is just incredible, my favorite song of the album.
Too bad not all the songs have that kind of emotion. The main flaw of this album is exactly that, the lack of deep emotions, the lack of feelings, and the lack of intensity and desire. Even if the music and the vocals are superb, there is a hollow feeling behind it. You don’t feel the intensity and the emotions that you feel in bands like Opeth, Rise Against, even in My Chemical Romance. It’s a shame that this happened because if the album had that, it would have been so much better of an experience. A lot of the songs have the potential to be better than they already are, but are left dry because they are missing the things I just mentioned. It isn’t that the album is completely deprived of these elements, but it is really lacking them.
An excellent effort by Funeral For A Friend, it led me to want to listen to more music from them and also led me to buy this album after finishing listening to it at the store. “Tales Don’t Tell Themselves” is a great piece of musicianship that I advice everyone to give it a try, especially if you like a softer post-hardcore sound.
“All the words that we have to say,
they don’t leave, when the moment comes,
as the days go on, and the places fade away,
into dirt, into dust, it all fades away.”
Recommended Tracks to Download:
One For The Road (Track 8)
Out Of Reach (Track7)
The Diary (Track 3)
All Hands On Deck- Part 1: Raise The Sail (Track 5)
