“We all grew up ‘the weird kid’ who was saved by music”, appears as The Funeral Portrait’s own descriptive within their Spotify’s bio and so, as this is my first encounter with them it’s safe to say they gave me something with which to resonate without even hearing a note! So, without further ado, lets see what they sound like.
When listening to something for the first time I tend to think of who I’d match the band with in terms of creating a playlist of similar music, and straight from the off with the
opening track “Suffocate City” I found hints of Shinedown, Egypt Central, and even a smidgeon of My Chemical Romance. Reasonable company to be keeping indeed and ‘Greetings from Suffocate City’ threw at me 14 tracks, averaging out at 3.30mins each, or roughly a third per song of the average Meat Loaf anthem, (What? It’s a valid system of measurement for anyone who jogs or spends time on a treadmill in a gym!), which meant 50 minutes of entertainment, accordingly full of suitably emotional relatable rock songs! What’s not to like?
Interestingly, speaking of other bands, there’s a smattering of guest stars floating around this album. The aforementioned opener manages to snag Spencer Charnas of Ice Nine Kills, which incidentally worked rather well, while one of the stand out tracks ‘Dark Thoughts’ commandeers the services of Danny Worsnop of Asking Alexandria fame, ‘Voodoo Doll’ smuggles in Eva Under Fire, and ‘You’re So Ugly When You Cry’ grabs and shakes up Bert McCracken from The Used! The fact that there are so many strong guests boded well, and it’s fair to say they complimented and augmented rather than subjugated the sound of the band they were playing with. ‘Voodoo Doll’ felt very much like a single and a brief search told me it had been exactly that, much like ‘Dark Thoughts’ but this time out as noted, both come with guests! Rounded in sound, an excellent albeit short solo in the bridge, and catchy chorus plonks ‘Voodoo Doll’ as another in the stand out category. A nod to the production team should be noted here, as ‘Happier than You’ follows this on the album, and it’s a contrasting heavier sound that works well to exaggerate the differences between both tracks, showing a level of diversity which is needed in albums consisting of short tracks to keep things fresh rather than formulaic.
There’s actually quite the smorgasbord of differing sounds to be found here, something I found really enjoyable. No track sounds like the previous, ‘Generation Psycho’ nothing like ‘Stay Weird’ being a fantastic case in point, the former even including an iota of distorted screamo, the latter a delicate piano opening followed by Lee Jennings’s rather meaningful
uplifting soliloquy, celebrating individualism. ‘Blood Mother’ is driven by a pronounced continuous rhythmic drum throughout, (which I initially wanted to call an iambic pentameter but then dismissed this in a heartbeat!), and while ‘Holy Water’ shares a similar meter, it’s higher in pitch and somehow seems more fervent in delivery. There’s lots of harmonies within the instrumentations throughout and some interesting usage of vocal distortions, along with conversely several isolated vocal breaks, ‘Chernobyl’ being a track which illustrates all of the above, again even managing to incorporate an essence of screamo, whereas ‘Dopamine’ which follows, is easily the softest track on the release. Clean vocals, mildly mournful in delivery, it’s also musically quite a jump away from what precedes it, and from what comes next and yet it somehow fits both within the flow of the album, but also if you’re listening on shuffle. Heck, ‘Hearse for Two’, the closing track even has a whiff of Nickelback to it, a band who have page after page of results if you google them combined with the words “Guilty pleasure”!
Currently touring the USA sharing stages with such esteemed artists as The Hu, Alien Ant Farm, and even Mastadon, these guys’ stock can only continue to go up, and off the back of this release, I’d be curious to see The Funeral Portrait in concert. Every track has almost a hint of an audition about it, with the two standouts being the final refined versions of preexisting releases. I suspect live, without the time constraints placed on them in order to cram 14 songs into an album substantially under an hour long, the guitarists Cody Weissinger and Caleb Freihaut, (who also plays keyboards), would get to relax a little more and add some obviously present artistic flair to some of these songs. On saying that, this is a very strong release indeed. If we follow the audition metaphor to its natural conclusion The Funeral Portrait: Greetings from Suffocate City passes with flying colours. A plethora of songs, amalgamated into one strong personality, there’s something here for all ears to enjoy, and more than enough to make me look forward to anything new which is to come in the future.
1. Suffocate City (feat. Spencer Charnas of Nine Kills)Ice
2. Blood Mother
3. Doom And Gloom
4. Holy Water
5. Dark Thoughts (feat. Danny Worsnop)
6. You’re So Ugly When You Cry (feat. Bert McCracken of The Used)
7. Chernobyl
8. Dopamine
9. Voodoo Doll (feat. Eva Under Fire)
10. Happier Than You
11. Alien
12. Generation Psycho
13. Stay Weird
14. Hearse For Two
