The Funeral Portrait

About The Funeral Portrait

The Funeral Portrait started in Atlanta around 2015, which makes them relatively young in a genre that's been cannibalizing itself since the mid-2000s. Frontman Lee Jennings pulled together a lineup that could handle the kind of metalcore that doesn't pick a lane—they wanted the breakdowns, sure, but also the melodic hooks and the theatrical goth aesthetics that bands usually save for album covers rather than actually incorporating into the sound.

They got attention early with their 2016 EP "Greetings from Suffocate City," but it was really "A Moment of Silence" in 2019 that suggested they might have more staying power than your average Warped Tour hopefuls. The production was cleaner than expected, and tracks like "Numb" showed they understood that heaviness works better when you're not hitting ten the entire time. They were clearly drawing from Motionless in White's playbook—that horror-tinged metalcore thing—but with enough post-hardcore in the mix to keep it from feeling like straight cosplay.

The pandemic years were when they actually started building something. While other bands were doing acoustic livestreams, The Funeral Portrait kept writing, and it paid off with "Greetings from Suffocate City: Remorse" in 2020 and then the full-length "The Final Epoch" in 2021. That album is probably still their calling card. Songs like "Neon Viper" and the title track found a balance between theatrical without being embarrassing about it, heavy without being exhausting. Jennings has one of those voices that can flip between clean singing and screaming without making it feel like two different bands stitched together.

"Sonnets of the Silent" came out in 2022 and showed them getting more comfortable with atmosphere. The production got denser, more layered. Tracks like "Deathwish" lean harder into that gothy post-hardcore space, while "Hate" proves they can still write a straightforward banger when needed. There's some genuine songwriting happening underneath the breakdowns—actual hooks you remember after the song ends, which is rarer than it should be in this genre.

They've spent the last couple years touring pretty relentlessly, mostly opening for bigger metalcore acts but occasionally headlining smaller rooms where their aesthetic actually works. The whole vampire-romantic-horror visual thing could easily tip into parody, but they manage to keep it just grounded enough. Recent singles like "Buried Alive" suggest they're still figuring out how much melody versus aggression serves them best, which honestly is more interesting than bands who figured that out in year two and have been repeating themselves ever since.

They're not reinventing metalcore, but they're competent at it, and competent with some actual ideas is better than most of what's happening in the genre right now. Whether they break through to that next tier probably depends on whether they can write an album front-to-back that justifies the runtime, but the pieces are there.

Shows are tightly executed with a methodical heaviness that hits harder in person. The crowd tends toward the dedicated rather than casual, with mosh pits that respect the dynamics of the songs. They deliver without showmanship, letting the music do the work.

Known for Hate, The Final Epoch, Sonnets of the Silent, Deathwish, Buried Alive

See The Funeral Portrait Live