 
Over the years Funeral For A Friend have gone
through a fare amount of line up changes with
Gav Burrough and Richard Boucher joining the band
for their fifth studio album ‘Welcome Home’
in 2011, now two years on Funeral For A Friend
welcome Pat Lundy formerly of Rise To Remain to
the band and if their latest singles ‘Best
Friends And Hospital Beds’ and ‘The
Distance’ is anything to go by then they
have come up with their biggest, darkest and heaviest
sound yet.
Now the sixth Funeral For A Friend studio album
‘Conduit’ is complete I can confirm
that Funeral For A Friend have gone more back
to the sound and style that they started off with
when they formed as a band all those years ago
yet this time things are more mature and slightly
angrier sounding and is easily going to challenge
their debut album ‘Casually Dressed And
Deep In Conversation’ for album of their
career.
‘Conduit’ opens with ‘Spine’
which’s opens up really well in a low key
kind of way, but as soon as the song hits the
36 second mark Matt Davies comes in with his newly
developed raw screamy vocals which he has taken
the time to master since the departure of ex drummer
and scream master Ryan Richards, and from this
moment Funeral For A Friend take you on a ball
breaking post-hardcore journey.
The album title track ‘Conduit’ features
Matt Davies letting off some pent up anger throughout
as he shouts his way through as the rest of the
band work solidly laying down chunky some chunky
guitar riffs and ferocious drumming.
Recent singles ‘Best Friends And Hospital
Beds’ and ‘The Distance’ are
easily some of the best tracks that the album
has to offer, as they are both and furious energetic
numbers , but it is ‘The Distance’
which has the edge over the two tracks as Pat
Lundy really lets rip with his drumming especially
during the outstanding opening to the track and
overall the song features Matt Davies hitting
a happy medium with his vocals as he lets rip
in a ballsy way but still maintains a melodic
edge.
One of the best things that Funeral For A Friend
have done with ‘Conduit’ is the way
they have crafted 11 tracks which don’t
outstay there welcome as most of the tracks on
the album skim just over the 2minute mark and
only 2 tracks manage to make it into the 3minute
mark, the odd song such as ‘Best Friends
And Hospital Beds’ feels like it ends a
bit abruptly but you easily forgive the band for
this as the song is excellent and the length stays
true to what makes a great punk rock song.
The album comes to a close with the awesome ‘High
Castles’ a song which features Ryan’s
last bit of drumming for Funeral For A Friend,
it is taken from the ‘See You In Hell’
EP which was released towards the end of 2011,
the song is the longest running track on the album
and is quite melodic sounding for the most part
of it but really explodes into madness at the
3minute 10seconds mark as Matt Davies “Fist
By Fist”.
Overall ‘Conduit’ is a quality album,
its short but sweet with a big aggressive yet
infectious feel and is going to be an absolute
joy to experience on the live circuit and let’s
be fair ‘Conduit’ was written for
the live circuit.
5/5
Review by Trigger
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