Songs of artist: Funeral for a Friend

Funeral for a Friend were a Welsh post-hardcore band from Bridgend, formed in 2001. The band consisted of lead vocalist Matthew Davies-Kreye and guitarist Kris Coombs-Roberts for its entire history, with Darran Smith (guitar), Gareth Davies (bass) and Ryan Richards (drums and screaming vocals) completing the line-up for the band’s first four studio albums. Between 2008 and 2012 the band transitioned towards its final line-up, which saw Davies-Kreye and Coombs-Roberts alongside guitarist and occasional vocalist Gavin Burrough, bassist Richard Boucher and drummer Pat Lundy (who left the band in 2014). Funeral for a Friend’s popularity rose in the United Kingdom with the release of their debut album, Casually Dressed & Deep in Conversation (2003). Achieving both a gold certification and three top twenty singles in their home country, Casually Dressed & Deep in Conversation is often acclaimed as one of the landmark emo records of the 2000s. Hours (2005) featured a similar musical style to their debut, but also featured more melodic sensibilities, and Tales Don’t Tell Themselves (2007) showed an evolution in Funeral for a Friend’s musical style from the style which defined their debut, as the group began to diverge from their use of screaming vocals and post-hardcore influenced guitars, favouring a more melodic rock influence. These albums achieved gold and silver sales certificates respectively in the UK. Funeral for a Friend self-released their fourth album, Memory and Humanity (2008) through their short-lived record label Join Us, the album arguably being their most eclectic to date. Following this the band tied themselves to other independent labels for Welcome Home Armageddon (2011) Conduit (2013), and Chapter and Verse (2015), which showed the band returning to the more metal and hardcore influenced style of their earlier work. In September 2015 they announced their break-up and final tour in 2016. On 21 May 2016, they played their last performance to a sold-out Forum in London.