Funeral

From These Wounds

Candlelight Records 2007

I haven't heard Funeral since their debut EP, Tristese.  That's how out of the loop I am.  But I finally crawled out from under my rock into the grey mists of another somber doom metal review.  I have a friend who constantly talks these guys up though so I came into this review with pretty high expectations.  But to tell the truth I wasn't all that impressed.  I found that all the right elements were there but somehow they didn't manage to capture my attention at all.  The vocals sound bored and apathetic.  Also the riffs seem somehow a little on the unengaging side of things.  That doesn't mean that there aren't some good songs on here and some interesting ideas and riffs but they appear so few and far between.  The opening riff of Architecture of Loss is so uplifting and commanding that is saddens me they don't use it more.  And that is one of my main problems.  They have good material and then they water it down and bury it in a seas of midtempo ho-hum riffs that dilute the effect it could have and rob a lot of the songs of their identity.   Funeral however are quite skilled at the employment of clean and acoustic guitar passages like the one at approximately the 3 minute mark in This Barren Skin.  Its subtle usage helps break up the song somewhat and bring on the melancholy from a different angle.  Incidentally This Barren Skin is probably my favorite song as its main riff carrying through with the keyboard undercurrent is quite sorrowful.  Also the main riff in Vagrant God carries such a weight from a burden of immense sadness that I actually lose myself in reverie for awhile.  But the crunch of the midtempo riffs steals some of that self-contemplation back from me.  I am just not a big fan of this album from Funeral.  Maybe my anticipation was too much but I just feel let down.  It's not a horrible album by any stretch of the word but mainly it just bores me.