The Funeral Pyre
WOUNDS

December 2008
Released: 2008, Prosthetic Records
Rating: 3.5/5
Reviewer: Robert Williams

Hailing from La Habra, California is The Funeral Pyre who have released their third full length album “Wounds” through Prosthetic Records. The four piece formed in 2003, incorporate a melodic Scandinavian like Black/Death sound on Wounds. Pummeling along from start to finish on this nine track romp, The Funeral Pyre tread through blast beats, harmonic minor chords and lots of double bass drumming. Vocalist John Strachan never once deviating from his screeching high register screaming.



The band has since abandoned the use of keyboards found on earlier works in favor of a more straight forward metallic approach. As much as the music on Wounds does adhere to a certain formulaic sound of Scandinavian black metal, one thing that does step out of that particular mindset and advance the band’s sound forward is the inclusion of face ripping guitar solo’s that pop up now and again on the album.



The title track features a guest vocal appearance from Makh Daniels of Apiary and fades out with ambience and slowly strummed distorted guitars building a nice dynamic range before stabbing steak knives in your ears with “These Ties That Bind” that comes blasting out of no where when you least expect it.



Outside of the aforementioned musical stylings to be found on Wounds, don’t walk in to this release expecting a corpse painted bunch of forest walkers lamenting forth a handful of odes to Satan. If you enjoy extreme genres of metal, this disc should do right by you.