the band
The in-between hours are the spaces where alchemical magic occurs. 4 A.M. night sweats, churning up the stubborn loose ends and residues of unfinished business, that restless awareness of the oblique demands dawn will bring, and stray thoughts flooded with sudden significance – they’re all given an unconstrained, vivid urgency that our more clear-cut, daylight co-ordinates can’t access.
Steeped in nocturnal, death rock adventurism, driven with a post-punk anxiety that feels increasingly like the twitching heart of our modern age, and fueled by hardcore punk intensity, the second studio album from Boston’s Final Gasp, New Day Symptoms, does what all great rock records do. Not only does it place itself within a lineage, summoning up and amplifying a spectrum of powers from rock’n’roll lore, it makes them resonate in the here and now. It gives voice to those fears and frustrations lurking just under the surface of waking consciousness and turns them into a rallying cry.
Throughout New Day Symptoms, Final Gasp creates a potent reaction from the furious and the forlorn, frontman Jake Murphy’s vocals both a supercharged howl into the void and a remorseful echo back. But where the band’s 2023 debut, Mourning Moon, was a concentrated shot of acrid, underground death rock, its propulsion tanks largely filled with references to Samhain and Killing Joke, New Day Symptoms keeps all the core urgency while vastly broadening its scope. With new space to explore, this is an album that feels communal, a mapping of personal trials and dark recesses onto a map dotted with rafters-rousing marker points.
Through Look Away’s driving-through-a-pyroclastic-cloud kineticism, chased by the ghosts of In Solitude and Swervedriver; through the anthemic, acid-corroded vistas of The Apparition and gothic tub-thumping beat of Gifted Shame; to No Hand To Lead’s channelling of Don’t Fear The Reaper’s looping groove and Prediction’s contrast of insurgent riffs and minor-key bracing for disappointment, New Day Symptoms takes the familiar into uncharted territory and makes the unfamiliar instantly, internally recognisable.
Final Gasp’s ability to meld opposing forces into something vibrant and new is encoded into their DNA.
“I think we’re still figuring it out, to be honest,” says Jake. “It’s like most things when you start out you have a vision and stick to it. We just quickly realised we could do so much more with it. We blossomed into this group of people that all have similar influences, but see them from different perspectives. We could hear the band beginning a new chapter.”
One of the main reasons for the broadening of the band’s sound on the new album is that New Day Symptoms was written much more as a democratic process than Mourning Moon.
“It got me personally more excited,” Jake enthuses, “because everything was on the table and everyone’s ideas were blending together really well. Naturally we still rely on our roots, but this time we let ourselves explore different tones. And we were all so open and receptive to each others’ ideas that writing and recording this record was more of a collaboration. Having Arthur (Rizk, producer) actually produce this record opened even more ideas to us. Everyone was together at all times for a week while recording this, whether it be at the Airbnb working on songs, or working on them in the studio. It was a total hands-on, involved process between all of us.”
It’s that open-mindedness while still being fully in touch with your underground roots that gives New Day Symptoms such a galvanizing force. But where its predecessor dealt very directly with personal themes of loss and anxiety, here a slightly different approach was taken.
“With this one, I didn’t want it to be as personal,” says Jake. “But then reading the lyrics back, I ended up feeling differently about them – they were personal on a different level. A lot of these songs are written from an outside perspective, what could’ve happened if things were different, but ultimately it didn’t end that way. You can’t change what’s already been done, so you just have to move on. It just means it’s a part of who you are now.”
The lead single, The Apparition, hones in on that exact feeling. “It’s all about persevering and surviving in the face of ultimate defeat,” Jake muses, “watching someone die in front of you, knowing you’re not the one that can save them. It’s about confronting the realities of this world, the good and the bad.”
Another song, Burials of Birth, deals with a homeless man living off the grid that Jake used to see in his youth, whose tent encampment was burned down by the police and who froze to death in the process of trying to rebuild it. It’s that ability to perceive a sense of loss from an outside perspective that makes it resonate more widely, and gives us greater perspective to deal with our own.
New Day Symptoms, the penultimate title track, is a clenched fist wrapped in potassium-reaction, Geordie-esque riffs, complemented by the restless, atmospheric final comedown of Pale Sun, both existing on the borderland of trepidation and hope that Final Gasp have made their own. After all, a symptom is never an omen of anything good.
“It’s like a curse of joy,” Jake says, “there are times in life when you’re so optimistic, but when it’s stripped away you're left saying, ‘What was I thinking?’ It’s being haunted by that good feeling, or rather a shadow that lurks behind it. But does that mean you shouldn’t enjoy it while it lasts?”
Above all, New Day Symptoms is one of those rare killer rock’n’roll albums whose conviction and honesty make it unique, primed to stand the test of time, and, as acclaimed tours with bands as diverse as Abbath, Gatecreeper, Fiddlehead, Poison Ruin, Devil Master and Imperial Triumphant make clear, unlimited in their appeal.
As Jake concludes, “It’s exciting to have the record out. I think this is an evolution of the band and we’re just going to keep writing music that inspires us. We’re going to continue moving forward – you can’t stay in the same place forever.”
