A Listen Inside Final Gasp’s New Day Symptoms
Final Gasp shared an advance preview of their second full length album, New Day Symptoms, ahead of its release, offering an early look at where the Boston band is taking their sound next. A sound cloaked in shadow esque atmosphere and driven by a sense of restless urgency, the album feels deeply rooted in death rock and post punk traditions while pushing outward with stretched arms of modern unease. Even on first listen, New Day Symptoms positions itself as a record molded by the frames of anxiety, frustration, and the confrontation with it all.
Final Gasp is Jake Murphy on vocals, Alex Consentino on guitar and synth, Sean Rose on bass, Peter Micanovic on guitar, and Kevin Ordway on drums.
I didn’t know what I was in for, and that shock factor when I first played the album was exactly what I needed this week. I’ve long craved something new in music, and this album tended to a need I didn’t even know I held. From the very first track, I was completely transported, dissociated from my sunny Southern California timeline into a world that felt cold, dark, but absolutely stunning. I wanted more, craved more, and listening to it felt like a call to fully immerse myself. With my deepest intent, I want people to truly listen.
New Day Symptoms taps into that restless awareness, giving it a vivid urgency that daylight just cannot seem to reach.
Rather than placing the album neatly into a single genre, New Day Symptoms moves through a spectrum of total intensity and diversity, easily making it so unique and hard to ignore. Hardcore punk propulsion forms its backbone, but it constantly pulls from darker and more melodic venues, allowing tension to build and release in the most unpredictable ways. The album states that it knows its origins, with that echoing of classic rock, death rock, and post punk without being trapped by tradition. Instead, those influences are rewired and melded into something way more immediate and personal, giving voice to fears that sit just beneath the surface for listeners, and turning them into something communal.
The guitar solos are seriously ravenous, never letting you escape without a mark of remembrance, and long instrumental breaks let the music speak for itself. The switch between soft, dry cold vocals and unclean, nightmarish wails is totally ghastly, and seemed to remain in my head long after the song had gone away. The track “New Day Symptoms” itself had me spiraling, an absolute work of art. Each song feels like a long, untold story, a dance of beauty and dread within every note, never missing a beat. It’s heavy, but also calm, it’s giving sultry, while keeping things energetic, just everything at once.
The lead single, “The Apparition”, really gets in on the album’s core feeling. Jake Murphy explains,
“It’s all about persevering and surviving in the face of ultimate defeat, watching someone die in front of you, knowing you’re not the one that can save them.”
This was personally my favorite song off the album. There are subtle sonic choices that just scratch an itch in my soul from this one. The switch of low intense rhythm and then fluid like continuation, leading into that slow and dragged ending was just a recipe for perfection. I’m obsessed with it, and I’ve gotten a few others on board with it as well. If there’s any track that I implore you to explore, it is definitely this one.
Another standout, “Burials of Birth”, tells the story of a homeless man whose tent encampment was destroyed, ultimately freezing while trying to rebuild it. These outside perspectives on loss and survival give the album depth and resonance, a story with real meaning, making it both reflective and, again, more communal. What makes an album so successful is the bridges it builds between art and receiver, right? So Final Gasp has a hold on that quite nicely when it comes to lyricism.
Where Final Gasp’s 2023 debut Mourning Moon leaned heavily into raw, concentrated death rock, New Day Symptoms is where the frame seems to expand. The urgency found before is still solidly there, but the band allows more space for some additional texture, melody, and contrast. Jake Murphy describes the process as super collaborative, with the whole band contributing all their ideas and producer Arthur Rizk helping push them even further. That openness is totally audible, giving us that varied sound, which we can identify as Final Gasp.
Hearing how much they’ve expanded from Mourning Moon was really thrilling, especially after listening through the evolution. I wasn’t expecting some of the looser, more melodic sections, but they feel really good and that extra step into a fresher direction, giving listeners room to breathe while still keeping that bite that makes this band stand out.
Through tracks like “Look Away”, “The Apparition”, “Gifted Shame”, “No Hand To Lead”, and “Prediction”, New Day Symptoms moves fluidly between furious energy and reflective passages. Songs are really introspective but also keep it a shared moment, mapping personal trials onto a collectively human struggle. Jake Murphy stated,
“It’s exciting to have the record out. This is an evolution of the band, and we’re just going to keep writing music that inspires us… you can’t stay in the same place forever. That’s the message of this record and it’s there to resonate for people who may not feel it’s possible.”
New Day Symptoms is memorable and, honestly, really transformative for the soul, a dark home away from home you could say. The long guitar solos, Jake Murphy’s echoing and rasping vocals, and the shimmering percussion and bass envelop you completely. Each song holds on as you try to pull away, transporting you to another realm. It’s as if every genre I loved warped into one extravagant painting, tinges of goth, hardcore, metal, and more. My enthusiasm is hard to keep to myself, and like I said, I’ve been sharing this band with a handful of friends that would appreciate this sound. It taps into the dark corners of the mind while feeding a hunger for something entirely new and different. I am absolutely a fan of whatever this is and I’m hoping to catch them on their upcoming tour.
New Day Symptoms is out NOW.