Live Review: Fuming Mouth - Manchester
17th January 2023
Support: Celestial Sanctuary, Skabs
Words: Matthew Williams
Photos: Bill Mawdsley
I’ve been going to The Star & Garter in Manchester for more years that I care to remember and on a night when it was reaching -7 degrees outside, I was expecting a very low turnout. Walking up the stairs into the venue, I was amazed to see the pace busier than I’ve ever seen it, a true testament to the bands on the bill.
I didn’t know much about Skabs before seeing them, and as their lead singer encourages the crowd to all take three steps forward, I can sense what they are all about. Typical hardcore riffs, ramping up the tempo, to warm the place up, but the slow parts were equally as brilliant. The energy from the lead singer is infectious, as he tried to make the most of the limited space, with a few windmills of his own, and he urges the crowd to get involved. They play five songs, including a new one which has crushing drums, before wrapping up their short set with a super charged number that it just nuts.
My main reason for me coming to the gig initially, was to see the excellent Celestial Sanctuary, having watched and interviewed them at Damnation Festival in November. And like then, lead singer Tom seems genuinely surprised when he asks how many people have the latest album, and a decent round of applause goes round the venue. They begin their assault with the epic “Rid The Gormless” and a circle pit begins to emerge. The vocals are a bit off as they start a “song for the headbangers” and launch into “Suffer Your Sentience”, which is a classic death metal number with brilliant solos.
With vocal issues sorted, we are treated to a song about savagery, “Gutted with a Blunt Blade” and then a few more songs of their latest album “Insatiable Thirst for Torment”, with the blistering heavy “Gutted with Chunder, but I’m surprised at how passive the crowd are for them, as they rip through their impressively heavy setlist. They finish off with the mightily impressive “Trapped within the Rank Membrane” which gets people’s heads thrashing about and they end by thanking the crowd to a loud round of applause.
This was another first for me, as Fuming Mouth weren’t a band I was familiar with before they announced this tour, but I was really intrigued to see what they were like on their 1st ever UK tour. Hailing from Massachusetts, this is who the crowd were here to see, and you could sense the buzz as singer/guitarist Mark Whelan threw off his balaclava and the place goes wild. The first few songs were all a bit of a blur, with spinning kicks, windmills and general chaos in the crowd greeting their hardcore drops and heavy intense guitars.
The mix of songs was impressive, with chugging riffs and really fast beats, mixed with slow breakdowns and when they start to play songs of their latest album, “Last Day of Sun” things ramp up a bit. The impressive “I’ll Find You” seems full of anger and hate, portrayed well by Whelan, as he urges the crowd for more involvement, and is followed by the equally brilliant “Kill The Disease”. “Out of Time” is the song of the night for me, as the slow cumbersome intro is fiercely eradicated by some intensity, as the crowd really gets involved.
“We couldn’t have started the year better off than by coming here” Whelan says to the crowd, as they run through the awesome “Sign of Pain” and “The Silence of Life” which was a powerful and dramatic song. With the ending in sight, the crowd are ordered by an agitated looking Whelan to “bang your fucking heads” as they rip into finale “Road to Odessa” and with that the crowd disperses into the cold Manchester night, knowing that they have witnessed something special.
Photo credits: Bill Mawdsley
