ALBUM REVIEW: Last Day Of Sun – Fuming Mouth
The story of death metal in 2023 has been one of a constant battle between older and younger generations. For every outstanding effort from a FROZEN SOUL or a CREEPING DEATH or a CELESTIAL SANCTUARY, some legend like OBITUARY or CATTLE DECAPITATION or CANNIBAL CORPSE has released something just as strong – the real winner of course being the listener who gets to enjoy it all. Now the ball is once again in the (relatively) new blood’s court as Massachusetts’ own FUMING MOUTH return with their sophomore full-length Last Day Of Sun to strike what may well be the decisive blow in this competition we have completely invented for the sake of a snappy intro.
And of course, there is a far more significant story at play here – that of vocalist and guitarist Mark Whelan’s victory over life-threatening Acute Myeloid Leukaemia. The band had a concept in place for Last Day Of Sun before Whelan’s diagnosis and they’ve stuck to it, the album telling the story of a city in chaos as the sun is destined to extinguish in just 24 hours, but perhaps unavoidably the reflections on mortality and fear that this inspires become far more affecting in light of Whelan’s experiences. Suddenly the album’s depictions of church doors shut or a character’s desperate search for the one they want to spend their final moments with feel that much more real – and indeed more devastating.
The first words Whelan bellows for example are “I am out of time” on the album’s opener essentially of the same name, the line between a fictitious city reckoning with its impending doom and a man faced with the very real prospect of his own death blurred from the outset. Later in the record Whelan addresses his illness directly in the gritted teeth defiance of eighth track Kill The Disease. With a chorus of “Fight back / Kill the disease / Stand up / Kill the disease”, and a closing salvo of “I’ll kill it before it kills me” – all delivered atop furious death metal – it’s an emphatic ‘fuck cancer’ anthem, and arguably one of the tracks that best captures the album’s central message that tomorrow is not a certainty so you must seize today and live.
Even if you remove all emotion from it though – and good luck with that – Last Day Of Sun is still a gargantuan death metal record. FUMING MOUTH can groove, they can thrash, they can go doomy, and generally they jump from one of these things to another and back again multiple times in each track. They’ve always had a considerable hardcore influence in their sound which just sharpens everything that little bit more, and having leant once again on the inimitable Kurt Ballou for production of course they sound absolutely massive here. The HM-2 is dialled to perfection, the bass a constant rumble, and the drums tight and punchy as needed to grant the music its heft and propulsion. It makes for a thick and imposing sound, with all the agony and fury and conviction in Whelan’s vocals only adding to its power at every turn.
There is nuance within the onslaught too – a hypnotic melodic interlude of sorts in the form of Leaving Euphoria for example, or even the tortured sludgy ‘break’ of the 54-second Disgusterlude in a way – but surely the most towering highlight both in terms of variation and indeed on the album as a whole is its lead single The Silence Beyond Life. Even if you’ve listened ahead and know what’s coming there is still no moment more jaw-dropping than this track’s pivot to gigantic clean vocals as Whelan sings of fighting to survive even as you feel dead on the inside. It hits a level of anthemia that’s never really matched or even re-attempted on the rest of the record, the closest it comes to it being in the climactic Postfigurement which again brings melody directly into the death metal framework to end things on a note of hope.
If that sounds like a missed opportunity though, it should be emphasised that there is not a single second of Last Day Of Sun’s 46-minute runtime that lacks power or quality; there is no doubt whatsoever that 2023 will be remembered as an outstanding year for death metal, and this will forever be one of its most crowning achievements. Of course the story behind it elevates it – there isn’t really a world in which it couldn’t – but at no point do FUMING MOUTH allow things like goodwill and sympathy to excuse them from producing anything less than excellence. A triumph on every level and an album that will live ever so fittingly in the memories of all who hear it for many years to come.
Rating: 9/10
Last Day Of Sun is set for release on November 3rd via Nuclear Blast Records.
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