Tales Don't Tell Themselves

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Editorial reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review
In Tales Don’t Tell Themselves, Funeral For A Friend have penned their catchiest, most mainstream-friendly album to date. The band’s previous album, 2005’s Hours, saw Bridgend’s emo-tinged rockers soften their sound slightly, hardcore breakdowns and shrieked metal vocals receding and a more tuneful, melodic edge coming to the fore. On Tales..., Funeral walk further down this road. There’s little trace of the angry hardcore tykes who wrote songs like "The Art Of American Football", but songs like "Into Oblivion (Reunion)" and the Smashing Pumpkins-tinged "Open Water" are presented with the sort of anthemic widescreen that suggest My Chemical Romance should watch their back. Elsewhere, though, there’s signs of a growing songwriting maturity that might one day spring F4AF out of the punk ghetto for good: Matt Davies’ lyrics reach far beyond emo’s typical boy-meets-girl concerns, individual tracks linked by a narrative about a shipwrecked fisherman desperate to be reunited with his family, while the violin peaks and mighty drum rolls of "Raise The Sail" suggest Funeral For A Friend are eager to extend their musical palette. An impressive evolution. --Louis Pattison

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Kerrang - 5/5
" Tales...'is a triumph, a remarkably assured, wonderfully cohesive work, boldly conceived and superbly executed. "

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RockSound - 8/10
"If the tracks on `Tales Don't Tell Themselves' were any bigger, they'd shift the earth off its axis."

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Description
Third album, following 2005's 'Hours', from Welsh screamo heroes who have emerged as one of the most important and respected bands in the UK. On this ambitious concept album - about a lost fisherman, of all things - they explore their lovefor 80s soft rock. Toning down the brutality without forgetting how to rock out, they have written some of the grandest, most elegant and fully realised songs of their career. Includes the singles 'Walk Away', 'The Great Wide Open' and thetop 20 hit 'Into Oblivion (Reunion)'.

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Customer reviews

review by: date: 2008-04-21 rating:
What happened?
I bought this album after being pleasantly surprised with seeing the band - one of my friends asked which albums I already had, and my reply was "just Hours" and he said "only go and get Casually Dressed". Well. I decided to ignore him and get both.

Oops.

Nothing appeals to me here at all.

The first song, Into Oblivion, some reviewers have said is the only good point. I think I could think of 10 FFaF tracks better than this one, which doesn't say alot for the rest of the album.

Instead of the nitty-gritty in your face styling of the previous albums, this one talks about a fisher on a boat. Plenty of dramatic pianos follow. Sorry, I know concept albums can work sometimes, but this one really doesn't.

In short, buy the other two albums, see them live, and ignore this.

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review by: Jonny Boy date: 2008-01-25 rating:
A Bit of Perspective
Okay, so Funeral For a Friend are a band that you either like, or you hate. It's that simple. Now I'm no authority on the emo-side of rock 'n' roll, but there was something that didn't sit right with me about the fact that Madina Lake's latest album has 5 stars from 33/35 of the reviewers, yet FFaF are struggling to achieve 4 stars?

Now let's get a bit of perspective here - the reason Madina Lake seem to be rated (as far as Amazon is concerned) above FFaF is for one reason: people who listen to FFaF, albeit involuntarily, know more about rock 'n' roll than people who (evidently) listen to Madina Lake. And if you don't believe that, consider this: people who don't like FFaF that much seem to feel the need to write reviews for FFaF albums than people who don't like Madina Lake albums. That's because FFaF are far more relevant than Madina Lake.

Now I'll tell you a truth: if you're looking for heavy rock or heavy metal, go some place else, okay? Funeral For a Friend are so far past the stage when they'd listen to people who moaned about the album version of 'Juneau' being worse than the LP that it's not even funny. Seriously, nobody cares. Sell out? Well hell, FFaF never even approached metallic legitimacy in the first place. Take your elitist emo tendencies and shove them.

Bottom line: what FFaF have created here is a soft rock album that appeals across the gamate of young/old, male/female. Not happy about that? Review something else. Maybe Madina Lake, for example.

I write this review because I feel FFaF have gotten a massively unfair rap. This album is as good as anything you'll hear by any other soft rock outfit. It's not prog. It's not meant to be. It's not heavy. It's not meant to be. It is, simply, quite superb soft rock. And it's quite epic in places. They don't have awful videos that chop and cut their music like 30 seconds from Mars, they don't have "we want to be emo" tendencies and yet fail like late Blink 182 albums, and they aren't as blatantly awful as Madina Lake.

So listen, in my opinion, if you want a superior soft rock album, by this. "Casually Dressed..." is slightly better, but what the heck. Buy them both. It's not that expensive. My advice: buy this album: FFaF can actually throw a riff, unlike half the dross that most of their fans listen to.

And this is from a metalhead.

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review by: date: 2007-10-25 rating:
Great album.
I like every songs on it. It's very melodic and meaningful. I think it's one of the best albums this year to buy.

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review by: JL date: 2007-10-17 rating:
A must buy
The CD is great, every track ha its own variations that stops the album from being boring by the beat and rythem being similar unlike the three cheers for sweet revenge by my chemical romance. In all this Cd is a must have in any rock music lover's collection


review by: date: 2007-09-06 rating:
different album but brilliant
usually im not the biggest fan of bands changing thier stylr from heavier music to lighter like lostprophets for instance but this album is superb it has some real brilliant songs my favourites are into oblivion, walk away, out of reach and more it proves that bands can chnage and really produce great records

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