Off the back of their recent album release ‘Greetings from Suffocate City,’ The Funeral Portrait have dropped a four track E.P. into my inbox for my listening pleasure as a way of thanking their fans with an updated version of their 2014 track. Happy to oblige, I spent the next half an hour or so immersed in this unexpected gift. Here’s what I found…
The E.P., consists of three tracks released on the aforementioned album: “Chernobyl”, “Hearse for Two” and “Dopamine”, along with the new title track “Casanova (C’est La Vie)” all of which max out at nothing higher than 3.44 minutes. It’s a short sharp shock and I found myself wondering if placing “Dopamine” last was intentional for more than just its warmer sounding finality. Entertainingly in my review of the album I grouped these three album tracks together stating: “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”
Curiously, the title track here is also a myriad of interchanging sounds. It begins with strong, almost crass guitars but the vocal is mellow initially, using distortion again in order to add inflection. Cher has much to answer for all those years ago! It’s rather melodic, which fits with the oft repeated lyric “There’s a special place in hell for all the broken hearts like me.” but then switches in and out of screaming, It works, like a musical version of good cop bad cop, drawing you in and then sucker punching you in the gut. “Chernobyl” does something similar as noted above, and tells a story of someone who’s hard to deal with, presumably a lover. There’s lyrics again which paint a picture, “She’s just like Chernobyl” “have to choose when to defuse you” and “melting down from the inside out”, all really work, and that combination of harsh and gentle, punchy and melodic, all work well as a follow up track, much like it worked on the album.
“Hearse for Two” is probably my favourite in terms of catchiness. It’s an easy listen, and I maintain you can sling this on a mix tape and either follow it with “Someday” by Nickelback or have it preceding it. This would happily get mainstream play and could be a single in its own right. There’s a complete absence of screaming, and it’s simply an accessible and genuinely decent track. “Dopamine” is paced similarly but it’s not got that feel of a rock track to it. This would do well in an alternative chart, paired with feel good songs or even possibly very very early Radiohead releases such as the whole ‘Pablo Honey’ album.
There’s two aspects of Funeral Portrait on show here. First there’s the band who could happily play alongside ‘Bullet for my Valentine’, illustrated in the first two songs, and then there’s what comes next. Radio friendly, commercially more viable in terms of accessibility, and less aggressive but losing nothing of their musical guile. It’s a good thing to have in your locker, the ability to switch from one to another seamlessly and the ‘Casanova’ E.P. shows they’ve mastered blending that better than a Columbian barista making coffee!
Enjoy!
