Funeral Diner "The Wicked" CD

Funeral Diner "The Wicked" CD
[Alone]
This one opens with a strange instrumental, "...And the Beast Shall be Made Legion", which uses lots of nice clean passages and soft, moody playing; disrupted only by the presence of weird sort of somber atmospheric keyboards that are a blend between cheesy hipster sounding stuff and something a less-than-good metal would do for an intro. "End on 6" then brings in the distortion and screaming vocals, somewhat more typical in style (sort of dark screamo stuff), but I do really like the tightness of the performances and the subtly eerie sense of melody/dynamics. The title track is then more frantic and perhaps heavier, one of my favorites herein, as is closer "It Burns" with its shifts from calmer clean guitars to acerbic distortion and dissonance. I will say that the recording is good, while inconsistent. I like the punch of the drum tones, the bass is solid, the guitars clear, etc. The vocals also sound pretty good, though stylistically the whole screaming/speaking thing is a little tired here. It's not bad at all. If nothing else I like the importance of the rhythm section within these compositions. I'm definitely bothered by the fact that "End on 6" and "It Burns" are so much quieter and flatter than the other songs, though. They sound like they come from a totally different recording session, but there are no credits to indicate such inside the packaging. The disc comes in a simple digipack with black and white and maroon coloring and fairly minimal artwork depicting landscapes and rugged building interiors. No lyrics or anything like that, just brief credits and the song titles. A strange EP. It's not something I'd listen to regularly, and it looks pretty bland, but I can appreciate the last three songs. The keyboards definitely break up the otherwise interesting opening piece, but this would've been a bit more effective without those elements. Pretty good for what it is. I've heard far, far worse. There's just nothing here that grabs me enough, and the bland presentation isn't helping that. Decent, but nothing striking. (5/10)
Running time - 17:58, Tracks: 4
[Notable tracks: The Wicked, It Burns]
Alone Records - http://www.alonerecords.com

This review has been displayed 1955 times.

Other "Funeral Diner" releases reviewed (1):
Funeral Diner "The Underdark" CD [Alone] (March 04, 2005)

Reviews with a reference to "Funeral Diner" (1):
Zann "For the Kids - By the Kids" CD [Geekscene] (June 01, 2004)

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