Follow TV Tropes

Following

YMMV / Funeral for a Friend

Go To

  • Epic Riff: "Roses for the Dead", "Recovery", "Serpents in Solitude", "Sixteen" and "Spinning Over the Island".
  • First Installment Wins: Casually Dressed & Deep in Conversation remains their most critically acclaimed and popular album.
    • There are also a number of people who believe that their first or second EP is this trope, due to considering the band to have sold out by removing the screaming on the rerecorded "Juno".
    • Some fans now consider Conduit to be their best release. It's certainly their darkest and heaviest.
  • Hype Backlash: So much. The band just saw themselves as one of many emo bands, but received an unprecedented amount of exposure thanks to good management. The hype sticker for Casually Dressed & Deep in Conversation suggested they were the next Nirvana, and they were compared to Iron Maiden at the time. By the time of Hours, they were being seen as a band for teenage girls due to their presence on Radio 1 and Top of the Pops. Due to the following album Tales Don't Tell Themselves' lead single "Into Oblivion (Reunion)" being more alt-rock than their previous output, it killed their credibility. Memory and Humanity was hyped up as being the band's best since Casually Dressed..., despite being a rather different style of music. Furthermore, the reviews claiming that Conduit was the band's best work yet despite changing style yet again didn't go down well. Basically, they have been the victims of their own publicity for their entire career, rather than being judged on their music's merits.
  • Narm: "Sonny", oh god how Matt over-sings here.
    • He does the same thing on "Drive", especially when it sounds like he's chewing the microphone.
    • And on "Faster", during the line 'when there's nowhere left to run.'
    • His more recent stuff live where he starts shouting a lyric randomly, not screaming it, but just shouting it for some reason.
  • Never Live It Down: Despite making consistently great music, the band have played on the nostalgia of their first two EPs and first two albums during pretty much every album cycle they've done. The band even did a song about it, "Old Hymns", in which they lament their early popularity and the fact that older fans don't view their new work in the same way - 'I used to mean something to you, but now I'm tired and alone'.
  • Older Than They Think: "This Letter", an acoustic song recorded during the Hours sessions, is commonly held to show how they went softer for that album. In 2013, it was revealed that they recorded an earlier version during the sessions for their first EP Between Order and Model. At this time the song was called "Grand Central Station". They didn't release it originally because it wasn't representative of their sound. It was a slap in the face to people who thought the band was just heavy during that EP's period.
  • Same Surname Means Related: Averted with the band having both Matthew Davies and Gareth Davies in the band. Also, the preceding band January Thirst had Michael Davies. None are related - it's just that Davies is a very common surname in Wales.
  • Tear Jerker: The video for "Roses for the Dead".
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The band have suffered this a fair few times during their career. First when the band were releasing Casually Dressed & Deep in Conversation and had removed the screaming vocals on Juno and had less screaming than Between Order and Model. Secondly, when the band had released Hours, the fans complained due to its Lighter and Softer sound, having more of a 2000s emo sound than post hardcore, though the band was still at the peak of their popularity in these era. Thirdly, when the band had released Tales Don't Tell Themselves, which featured a lighter, more alternative rock sound and conceptual lyrics about a fisherman, the band lost a fair number of fans, complaining the band had sold out and calling their album a dork age. Memory and Humanity hadn't fared better, with the band's lowest charting singles, though once the band released Welcome Home Armageddon it returned a lot of old fans. The final and last time was either Conduit, due to the loss of the band's screamer/drummer at the time Ryan Richards, and the genre shift to hardcore, or Chapter and Verse due to the lighter sound and rather bleak feel (A lot of the tracks seemed to detail the band's breakup, and Matt trying to cope with the lack of success in recent years).
  • What the Hell Is That Accent?: Boysetsfire joke in the reissue of Between Order and Model that they couldn't understand the band's accents when they first met them. Having never heard Welsh accents, they initially thought the group was Indian. This is somewhat understandable as Matt's singing voice is a dead-ringer for a Midwestern American accent, typical of the bands that influenced him.

Top