Mark Whelan celebrates life in devastating and destructive style on Massachusetts maulers Fuming Mouth's crushing third album
All bands face some sort of trials and tribulations. Some will let it overcome them, overshadowing the years of work and letting it swallow them whole. Others, like Massachusetts death metal mob Fuming Mouth, will use it as stepping stones, drowning their demons to reach higher musical planes.
On third album The Ringing Bell, the band is born anew. While vocalist/guitarist Mark Whelan remains and Chris Berg has switched to bass, the duo are flanked now by guitarist Patrick Merson, and ex-Slipknot drummer Jay Weinberg. With this new set up, they reach new demonic depths wrought in nihilism and fury, centring here on the theme of overcoming death, as influenced by Mark’s own battle with cancer.
The first thing that becomes clear is that the frontman has never sounded better. His vocals have hit a new peak, with gutturals conjured straight from the seventh circle of hell and screams full of emotion and turmoil. After Oblivion in particular stands to be one of his best performances in the Fuming Mouth canon, and the gang vocals towards the end offer the track some semblance of a hook, which feels like a misnomer given the heft of the music.
As it goes, the hooks - plural - are one of The Ringing Bell’s strongest points. The 'never sleep' refrain of Vivid Revelations is an absolute wrecking ball, while the closing calls of 'respect mortality' are doled out with the same staccato punch that made Pantera’s Walk such a classic in the metal umbrella.
The end of the album deals in doomier climes, with the title-track letting clean vocals ring out into the aether and a comparatively glacial riff underpinning the whole thing. Barbarian Scourge ramps up the heaviness once more on the vocals, but the instrumentation dabbles in more of an early-Pallbearer realm for a delightful dose of death-doom.
The Ringing Bell is yet another rock solid chapter in the life and times of Fuming Mouth. One that sees them locked on a destructive course of death metal supremacy.
Verdict: 4/5
For fans of: Full Of Hell, Leeched, END
The Ringing Bell is out now via Triple B.
