FUMING MOUTH
FUMING MOUTH “Last Day of Sun”
By Dr. Abner Mality
FUMING MOUTH from Massachusetts was one of the “buzz bands” that played Milwaukee Metalfest earlier this year, but I was unable to catch them. Boy, are these guys an awkward mish-mash of styles. When they are on point, they are extremely crushing, but when they experiment, the results are often clunky if not down right cringeable. Can you imagine a band that mixes Swedish death metal in the classic Stockholm style with choruses you’d find on radio rock nu-metal? You get it with FUMING MOUTH. Let us descend into their maelstrom.
The album is huge and rather bloated, with 12 tracks. Each track is supposed to represent a different hour of the last day before the sun is extinguished by catastrophe. It is also integral to the album that singer/guitarist Mark Whelan was dealing with cancer treatment during the recording period. He was able to get the best of the disease so far and for that, I give him heartfelt congratulations and support. The experience obviously influenced the music here.
Obviously this band loves its classic Swedish death metal, as that buzzing chainsaw sound permeates the album. But they dust that foundation with bits of deathcore, nu-metal and even some shredding power metal guitar solos. They are trying to be diverse in their sound, a laudable goal, but some of the combinations just don’t work. “The Silence Beyond Life” mixes dreadful crooning clean vocals like something you’d hear on the local “real rock” radio with a sort of a semi-Gothic tone. To my ears, it’s pretty bad. Semi-ballad “Leaving Euphoria” is even worse...it’s even more Goth and not particularly good Goth. In total contrast, we get the utter DISMEMBER-style blitzkrieg of “Kill The Disease” and “R.I.P.” (Rest In Piss). It’s like two different bands playing for two different audiences, but on the same album.
The band is at their most effective when they pursue a more deliberate bulldozer like pace. The opening track “Out of Time” has a great mid-paced crush, but they run it into the ground in a song that should have had two minutes trimmed off it. The title cut also has some killer doomy crunch to it. On last song “Postfigurement”, there’s a kind of slower hardcore feel mixed with howling vocals and weepy, sorrowful lead guitar.
The album is all over the place and runs the gamut from devastating to dreadful. There is obviously a lot of emotion and creativity going on, but it isn’t focused the right way...yet. FUMING MOUTH surely love their death metal, they just need to find out how to integrate other influences into it in a more effective manner.