Funeral Diner, The Underdark

Yeeaaah. THIS is what “screamo” really is and should be. You won’t find a Funeral Diner CD at your local Hot Topic, that’s for sure. But (or maybe because of that), this is the most incendiary, most cathartic, most real example of this subgenre I’ve heard since…well, since probably the first Planes Mistaken For Stars album. If more bands made music like this, then “emo” wouldn’t have picked up the commercialized, milquetoast-y modern-day connotations that are killing the genre. I mean, you can practically taste the blood and smell the sweat during The Underdark. And it’s not just the pure power and volume level that I’m responding to here — there are lots of “louder” bands out there — it’s Funeral Diner’s raw emotion that really gets me into this record. Reminds me of a time when bands like this actually believed in what they were singing/screaming/thrashing about, instead of conforming to an “image.” The Underdark is ultimately a bad-ass album, and if you yearn for the stylings of Rites of Spring, Still Life, or even Saetia, then find this disc somewhere and commence to rocking the fuck out.