Funeral for a Friend surprised fans and cynics alike earlier in the year with a triumphant return to FFAF-form with 5th album Welcome Home Armageddon. New single Broken Foundation, due for release on June 13th on Distiller Records, proves the band are back doing what they do best; belting out frantically-paced, pop-punk-metal.
After flirting with flakier, less-trademark emo-pop styles on Tales Don’t Tell Themselves and Memory & Humanity, the Welsh 5-piece were half way down a slippery slope of conforming to musical trends, involving themselves in a popularity contest with the likes of You, Me at Six.
Thankfully, Welcome Home Armageddon marked a U-turn for Funeral for a Friend and Broken Foundation sees them guitar-soloing and double-bass drumming their way back into the fan’s good books. The typical vocal mixture of pop-punk singing and scream-o accompaniment is as welcome as the wailing guitar lines and rough-and-ready riffs that made the band’s first two albums Hours and Casually Dressed & Deep in Conversation such a success.
The single is by no means perfect, there is still a tendency to open their tracks with every sound they can possibly conjure instead of build their many, varying layers up. Despite this, it’s a catchy and often nostalgic track full of classic metal, punk and post-hardcore elements.
[rating=4]
Release date: 13th June 2011
Label: Distiller Records
