When FUNERAL FOR A FRIEND waved goodbye to guitarist Darran Smith last year, you would have been forgiven for thinking the band were walking a path well worn and slowly sauntering towards an unwilling conclusion. A few short months later, and you’d be repeatedly bashed around the head and called a blithering idiot for even doubting them for a second.
Funeral exploded back with top notch EP ‘The Young And Defenceless’ at the tail end of last year, and have immediately continued onto this reinvigorated, belter of an album. There are a few tracks from the EP scattered in the tracklisting of 12, but if there’s one band you can forgive for it, it’s Funeral For A Friend. The EP tracks snuggle nicely in with the rest of the new material, and the band are at the very, very top of their game.
Having influenced a good part of an entire generation of musicians, you’d think FFAF would probably sit back and admire their work, but have done the traditionally unlikely and inadvertently schooled half of the pretenders in the process.
If there are favourites to pick, ‘Old Hymns‘, ‘Broken Foundation’ and ‘Owls (Are Watching)’ are early frontrunners – but overall ‘Welcome Home Armageddon’ is a beautifully structured joy to listen to and a reminder of everything Funeral For A Friend do so well.