Track Listing

1. Into Oblivion (Reunion)
2. Great Wide Open
3. Diary
4. On A Wire
5. Raise The Sail
6. Open Water
7. Out Of Reach
8. One For The Road
9. Walk Away
10. Sweetest Wave

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13478 in Music
• Released on: 2007-05-14
• Number of discs: 1

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

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

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

Customer Reviews

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.

Awesome Album!!!!
I got this album a month ago and haven't stopped listening to it. It's a lighter album than the previous two but don't let this put you off. The vocals are amazing. There is not a bad song on it and it flows along in some order rather than being thrown together. The band have definatley matured resulting in a superior sound and undoubtably appealling to a wider audience. Some reviewers have slated it saying they shouldn't be classed as rockers anymore. If your a bit more open minded and not pigeon holed into one type of music then i would strongly recommend it.

Their most "complete" album yet ?
In 2003 Funeral for a Friend released `Casually Dressed & Deep In Conversation' their debut record and with its blend of soaring melodies, part screaming / part singing vocals and chugging power riffs launched this Welsh band into rock mainstream. 4 years have now passed and with there 3rd album `Tales Don't Tell Themselves' FFAF may just have released their finest work thus far.
Their last record `Hours' suggested that they where starting to evolve from the band that gave us `Juneau' and `The Art of American Football'. The hardcore breakdowns and jagged post- punk noise replaced with a more rounded, focused and overall more melodic sound; most noticeably the aggressive vocals making way to allow lead singer Matt Davies to stretch his singing range.

`TDTT' whilst being a concept album certainly does delivers the band's most mainstream material to date and therefore their most accessible album. As the record flows along, every song seems to fit perfectly next to each other and nearly all of them sound like they where written to be played in mammoth arenas with thousands of people raising their arms aloft whilst belting out the words. `On a Wire' is destined to become a new crowd favourite with its "Find a way to bring me home" refrain and there are plenty more songs on here for people to scream their lungs out too.
While this dramatic change in sound and song structure may annoy the hardcore fans it really shouldn't matter one bit as this is a great rock record which is certain to win them plenty of new fans.

Every song on this album is huge; and the grand theme for the entire record is set right from the get go. As `Into Oblivion (Reunion)' kicks in with an electro synth, dramatic string backing and haunting choral arrangement before making way to soaring guitar lick and uplifting chorus which hears Davies claim "I stared, into oblivion and found my own" you can't help getting swept along with it all...it's a breathtaking opener to the record.

Concept albums can be tricky business; to often the concept becoming bigger than the record itself. `TDTT' thankfully doesn't full into this category instead it's a rather grand tale about a sailor shipwrecked in the middle of the sea, the record chronicling his thoughts and fears; which are in part are based on Davies's own personal phobia of the ocean.

The 6 minute closer `The Sweetest Wave' could be the best thing the band has ever put down on record. A huge, grand cinematic epic of a song with a sweeping orchestral backing that builds into an explosive crescendo that's as invigorating as blast of sea spray to the face.

`Tales Don't Tell Themselves' is an exceptional record. While many bands are happy to stick too rigidly to what they know, this is the sound of a band progressing and having done so with fantastic results the future output of this band looks as if it could be very promising indeed.