Album Review: Memory and Humanity

Memory and Humanity

Funeral For a Friend

8.1

Great

Release Date: October 2008

Rubric:

Musicianship: 8

Musical Cohesiveness: 9

Song Structure: 8

Lyrics: 6

Emotional Energy: 8

Emotional Landscape: 9

Album Structure: 8

Production: 9

Variety: 8

Lasting Impression: 8

Funeral For a Friend is trying so hard to not be an Emo Rock band. From the Metal breakdown halfway through "Constant Illuminations" to the winding indie rock guitar line in "Charlie Don't Surf" to the schizophrenic musical tug of war that is "You Can't See the Forest For the Wolves," FFAF tries to distance themselves from the endless hordes bands whose sound falls somewhere in between Saosin, Alexisonfire, and My Chemical Romance. The bad news is, Funeral For a Friend is an emo band at heart, and can't quite seem free themselves from that moniker. The good news is, FFAF is at their strongest when they work from an Emo/Screamo bassline and attempt to push it, albeit gently, beyond its normal boundaries. Funeral For a Friend is about as good as Emo rock gets, and their abilities and strengths are showcased appropriately on "Memory and Humanity."

Musically, the album is solid, not shockingly good, but entertaining on the whole. Songs rarely move beyond classic Verse Chorus Verse structure, but many songs use juxtaposing styles and moods to give each song a distinct and refreshing feel. "You Can't See The Forest For the Wolves" and "Constant Illuminations" are both built on simple structures, but use "heavier" passages to help add energy and spark to what would have otherwise been two solid, but unremarkable tracks. "Beneath the Burning Tree" is one of the album's best tracks, particularly because of its unique structure that switches gears in the middle of the song, for a new, more emotionally powerful motif that moves through its own highs and lows before building to an emotional peak.

The one thing that truly makes Memory and Humanity stand out is its mood. Throughout the album, FFAF creates a consistently intriguing landscape that sucks you in like a good book or movie, and never really lets you go. You really feel the tension at the beginning of "Waterfront Dance Club", and you can't help but sing along when then tension releases into the anthemic line, "last call on the Waterfront!" The album's variety and structure plays well into the mood as well, making sure that the listener gets a break from the heavy, high energy songs when necessary, and pumping up the energy and excitement just when you think that the band is about to go completely soft on you.

Funeral for a Friend paints a picture in every song with their strong song writing, and this is only enhanced by the absolutely terrific production. Romesh Dodangoda's guitar tones cut through each track with just the right amount of distortion and bite, the drums really pop out, with the snare, toms and kick occupying the lower spaces of the recording, and the heavy cymbals supplementing the guitars and vocals, while still occupying their own space. With a band like Funeral For a Friend, many producers struggle balancing the the hard charging guitars and drums with the more flighty and melodic vocals, either giving completely precedence to vocals, allowing the emotionally powerful instrumentation to fall to the background, or bringing the vocals down too close to the instruments, obscuring main melodies and lyrics, but this is not the case with Dodangoda's handling of Memory and Humanity. Davies' voices soars and screams over the recording, but each instrument adds its own punch, a balance that allows the entire album to reach the emotional heights that many albums never will.

Memory and Humanity's weakest point is it's lyrics. Funeral for a Friend have never been the most clever of lyricists, and unfortunately it hurts them here. Lyrics are often repetitive, and sometimes don't really make a whole lot of sense together. One of the most crippling examples of this comes one of the album's prettiest tracks, "Building," in which Davies sings "Tin can in hand, waiting for God to come around, but he never comes around, he never comes around." Fortunately, only a few lyrics fall to that level of atrocity, and some songs, such as "Beneath the Burning Tree" contain really strong lyrics. On the whole, the poor lyrics are generally covered up by the strong song writing and crisp production.

Each band member shows off a decently advanced level of proficiency with their respective instruments, but each song is a band effort, and there are no particular standout moments for any specific instrument. Part of Funeral for a Friend's strength is their ability to layer multiple levels of (somewhat) complex musical ideas on top of each other without ever reaching beyond their station and attempting something that they can't pull off. Memory and Humanity works because each band member has the ability to stretch his chops when necessary with a heavy chugga-chug guitar flair or a strong drum fill, while always maintaining a high level of cohesion and precision. It's not the most musically exciting album, but what it lacks in musicianship it makes up for with a strong emotional punch. Matt Davies' singing is technically solid and sounds appropriately emotional and strained, and fits well with the lyrics (despite their shortcomings) and the mood.

At the end of the day, Memory and Humanity is a great album that is only occasionally held back by weak lyrics and the limitations of it's genre. The only other drawback is that there aren't any tracks that really stand out far and above anything you've heard before, it's just an overall solid collection of very good songs, and because of that, it may be hard to grab onto individual songs on the first few listens, since no songs really jump out at you immediately. Despite this, Memory and Humanity's consistency and infectious mood make it a must have for anyone even slightly interested in dark, driving and emotive rock.