Band: The Funeral Pyre
Album: Wounds
Genre: Black/Death Metal
Label: Prosthetic

Tracks:
1. Thieves
2. Black Earth
3. The Gathering Bones
4. Wounds
5. These Ties That Bind
6. Arches of Existence
7. When The Light Ends
8. Devourer
9. Ghost Walker

The Funeral Pyre is a “blackened death metal” band from california. Now I know you’re just scratching you head saying “jp, what is “blackened death metal”?”, well have no fear, I’ll let you in on the secret. It’s essentially a fusion of death metal and black metal. Makes sense right? Well quite frankly I don’t much care for most black metal due to it’s poor quality and repetitiveness. Oh, and the vocals. But blackened death metal is actually pretty good, or at least it is in the case of The Funeral Pyre.

Wounds is very well produced. Before I even get in to the music I wanted to say that. All the levels are good and clear, and you can tell a lot of time and effort was put in to this release. Ok, now that that’s out of the way, The actual music is pretty good too. At first I thought a lot of the tracks were repetitive (mostly due to the barrage of blast-beat drumming throughout) but after listening to it again and again I really see the distinction between all the tracks. The vocal style stays the same on the whole cd, which kind of bugs me. Every once in a while the vocalist with switch up his black metal high screams for a good death metal low grunt. I really wish we heard more of it.

There’s a really good gang vocal type thing going on in the title track, which I enjoyed quite a bit. Actually, I really really liked that whole song. It’s probably the best track on the whole cd. It’s 8+ minutes of nonstop awesome.
It starts kind of slow, picks up, and leaves you with this glorious outro full of ambient guitar noises and synthesizes orchestra arrangements. If the whole cd had been as good as this one song, this band would be as popular as the bands they’ve toured with (3 inches of blood, vader, trivium).

As previously stated, the drums are pretty much just blast-beats and classic death metal set on repeat. Nothing too stunning, but it didn’t need to be. It fits with everything else really well. The guitar riffs are metal as all hell. We’ve got the great metal chugs and gallops, but my favorite are the harmonized riffs.

All in all it was a pretty decent album. Not breaking any new ground, but just original enough to stand out. Honestly, if you love death metal, but want something kind of different, check this out. And if you listen to black metal and want something different, check this out. And if you listen to ____ metal…you get the idea.

*Written By: Justin Proper*
GRADE: 7/10

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James Shotwell

James Shotwell is the founder of Under The Gun Review. He loves writing about music and movies almost as much as he loves his two fat cats. He's also the co-founder of Antique Records and the Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. You should probably follow him on Twitter.

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