Funeral Fires

Funeral Fires (Gatherers, Coarse) offer up furious, melodic post-hardcore on debut EP (listen)

After an initial idea was discussed on an Old Wounds, Gatherers tour in 2016 to The Fest, Adam Cichocki, Brandon Gallagher, and Matt Popowski began working on a record that sounded like The Blood Brothers and The Jonbenet. After numerous attempts to fill out the line up of the band, they linked up with Kyle Galloway to complete the record. Blending tongue and cheek guitar riffs and clever lyrics amidst crushing drums and funky low end, Funeral Fires takes elements of Three One G’s first wave of “annoying” punk, with the white belt glam of early 2000’s post-hardcore, and samples in vein of all of the bands associated with the project. Years after the initial demos were tracked, the quartet will release their debut record, BLOOD OF THE RAT$, on August 28th, 2020. The album was recorded, mixed and mastered by Adam Cichocki at Timber Studios.

Funeral Fires, whose bio is quoted above, are releasing their debut EP BLOOD OF THE RAT$ this Friday (8/28) digitally and on vinyl via Mourning Records. The band — whose members also play/played in Coarse, Trace Amount, Lakota De Kai, Tidal Gloom, Kingmaker, and more — previewed the EP with debut single/opening track “Party Puke” last month, and we’re now premiering a stream of the full thing ahead of this Friday’s release.

The band’s self-professed influences of The Blood Brothers, The Jonbenet, and Three One G’s “annoying” punk can all be heard, but BLOOD OF THE RAT$ is more than just an homage to Funeral Fires’ influences. It puts as fresh a spin on 2000s metalcore/post-hardcore as Knocked Loose, Vein, or any other of the current bands leading the charge on reviving that sound. And “annoying” as it may be, it’s also crisply produced and consistently tuneful. Kyle always has an underlying melody stirring beneath the surface of his coarsely screamed vocals, and he and the rest of the band nail a balance between accessibility and aggression.

As you’d probably expect from a hardcore band’s debut EP, BLOOD OF THE RAT$ is short but sweet, but it also finds time for quite a bit of musical variety, and it’s sequenced in such a way that it feels more like a journey than a collection of songs. And the note it ends on is the definition of “leave them wanting more.”

Listen to the EP:

15 Albums That Defined the 2000s Post-Hardcore Boom

Categories: