Album Review

Funeral For A Friend – Your History Is Mine:2002-2009

• 27th Sep 2009

Funeral for a Friend have apparently reached the ‘best of’ stage of their career, it’s hard to believe it was seven whole years since the Bridgend five-piece first burst onto the then-nascent emo scene and bothered the charts with their explosive, heart-on-sleeve songs. Pleasingly avoiding an arbitrary ‘singles’ format, Your History is Mine is a chronological collection that starts before 2003’s breakthrough Casually Dressed & Deep in Conversation and offers choice cuts from an impressive career, culminating in four new tracks – a generous allowance of fresh material for any best of.

What always set Funeral apart from other emo pretenders and put them up there with the mostly-stateside genre elite was the anthemic quality of their songs. Metal-influenced riffage and sparingly applied screamo embellishments support what are, underneath it all, brilliant melodies courtesy of frontman Matthew Davies. This is evident on all sixteen tracks on 2002 – 2008, from early classic ’10.15 Amsterdam Conversations’ onwards.

Emo may now be little more than a punchline, but this record chronicles the leading lights of what was once a thriving scene and reminds you of how good it could be; if the quality of the new tracks is anything to go by, it’s a ‘History’ that’s still being written.