Tales Don’t Tell Themselves
**1/2
The Welsh quintet Funeral For a Friend, known for their aggressive blend of poppy screamo and classic Iron Maidenesque power metal, have sought reinvention on their third full-length album. Tales Don’t Tell Themselves reaches for a grander musical scope this time out. It’s a wider production pumped up with occasional strings, horns and orchestral textures. Pixies producer Gil Norton provides the musical steroids.
The overall music, production and execution is pure Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, but individual songs zig and zag with all kinds of weird influences: “Into Oblivion (Reunion)” and “The Diary” sound like pop trio The Outfield; “The Great Wide Open” steals choruses straight from Big Country; “Out of Reach” could be a Foo Fighters outtake; and “Walk Away” is just New Wavey enough to be the next Killers single.
With multi-tracked guitars that reach for the epic and cinematic, Funeral For a Friend sound to me like they want to be the new Boston. And as much as I love “More Than a Feeling,” Funeral For a Friend’s big music has more ambition than actual hooks, I’m afraid. - Steven Ward