Feel Bad Friday
Funeral - The Architecture Of Loss
It's Friday, it's summer and people are feeling optimistic and happy, sipping margaritas in the sun and picnicking in the park.
This will not do.
To provide some balance, I'm bringing you the anti-Summer Jam song.
Funeral are practically the definitive modern doom metal band. In the early 90's alongside Anathema and My Dying Bride, they helped carve out a new sub genre of metal designed for people who like to feel bad. The formula is simple: super slow tempos, one layer of bass-heavy power chord guitar to set the basic tone, a little synth strings, then top it off with a minor key guitar lead (or electric violin in the case of old MDB) meandering over the top and some mournful, low vocals. Being British or Scandinavian seems to help. The formula seems to have spawned a thousand bands, but as usual, there are only a few that really master it. Funeral is one. Hell, they even had the "funeral doom" sub-sub-genre named after them.
They put out a couple albums with ethereal female vocals, another stereotype of the genre. They were one of the first doom bands to do that, but, unfortunately, they didn't quite master that style and those albums were pretty mediocre (IMO). In 2002, their bassist, Einar Frederiksen killed himself and they went on a long hiatus. They finally came back with a new bassist, Frode Forsmo, who also took over the vocals, and recorded From These Wounds (buy it from Candlelight Records or Amazon). Then, last October, guitarist Christian Loos was found dead in his home.
From These Wounds doesn't really tread any new ground. It's a return to the sound that they helped define. Funeral knows the territory like the back of their hand though as they make abundantly clear on this album. Frode's voice fits perfectly. He clearly doesn't have an exceptional range, but his baritone is rich and melts naturally into the songs.
So if you feel yourself becoming dangerously giddy and carefree from the summer fun and sun, shut yourself up in a dark room with some candles, a bottle of whiskey, and this song and it should bring you back down a notch or two.
Now back to your regularly scheduled happy robot music.