Interview:	FINAL GASP
Title:	To emerge whilst sinking into oneself

Since 2019, this fascinating US band has been releasing albums, and they’re actually getting better and better with every release.

With their second album, „New Day Symptoms“, Final Gasp serve up thoroughly magnificent, surprisingly catchy and utterly timeless Gothic Metal in the style of a more emotive Paradise Lost, whilst not lacking in death-rock dynamism and haunting moments brimming with melancholic longing – combined in a distinctly idiosyncratic, powerful and unique manner.

So anyone longing for such sounds that convey raw emotion and a dark, visionary otherworldliness need look no further.

Singer Jacob „Jake” Murphy is currently brimming with joy, as he lets me know. „It feels amazing. We’ve been waiting for this to come out for quite a while now so it’s great to see it getting out into the wild.“

How good and respectful is the current band chemistry?

„The bands chemistry is great, we’re all really excited to start touring off this and we’ve been working on some newer material as well. It’s been a new approach with me living in Chicago now but it’s still working as good as ever.“

Great, surprisingly catchy and total timeless Paradise Lost'esque Gothic Metal not lacking of dynamics and harsh moments, (melancholic longing) Death Rock, combined in individual, powerful manner, within a very own wise. How has your style developed and what do you particularly like about it? I love its emotionality and dark, visionary otherworldliness.

„We’ve all just been evolving as musicians together. It’s been fun and interesting trying things that we didn’t think would necessarily ‚work‘ before but I think with what we do there’s no real boundaries. Our early stuff was obviously very rooted in the more deathrock/punk atmosphere but it’s moved further than that now. We’re all pushing each other to do better and work harder at our craft and I think that’s been a beautiful thing.“

It's sheer unavoidable therefore for me to ask here about your inspirations regarding more or less famous bands within these genres.

„Well to be honest it’s a lot of things that aren’t necessarily in that world. We took a lot of influence from bands like DIIV, Soundgarden, Crowbar, some Paradise Lost for sure. Killing Joke is obviously unavoidable too. The Cure as well. It just comes down to hearing something we’re writing and liking it, and going from there.“

What was your mood and vision when you started writing songs for the new album—inspired by today's world, which seems to lack love and in-depth passion for arts more than ever before? Or was the whole thing more of a musical nostalgia trip – after all, the best and classic records came out years ago …

„It’s definitely a time and place record for us. We’re always going to remember where we were at that time mentally when we were working on it. I think it has that stark feeling to it which is how the world feels today. We all had a lot happen to us individually while working on it and even after it was recorded. It’s almost like it was following us through our personal endeavors we had to get through.“

How can the readers imagine you writing, developing and finalizing one of the new songs?

„It all starts with guitars. I’m always writing, Peter is always writing and we would meet up and work on some of the riffs together. We’d bring it to the band and we’d all shape it together. Sometimes it would be easy and sometimes it would just take a bit more time. A lot of the lyrics I was working on when we were on tour. I think when you’re on the road you have only one thing to think about so it makes it a little easier for you to focus on that. I’d demo out vocals at the rehearsal space and send them to everyone and see what they thought. I know when I sent the demo of ‚Pale Sun‘ to everyone it was something that we didn’t need to change. After all that we were ready to just put it all together and get it sounding right.“

How did the lyrics come about? Are they fictional, or did you incorporate personal experiences into them?

„They’re all based in reality. Some experiences I’ve had/seen and a lot I’ve seen happen to others. I treated this more lyrically from an outsiders perspective.“

What has changed most significantly in your attitude toward music and the music world since your start with the „Baptism Of Desire“ EP in 2019, based on your experiences over the last years?

„I know I wanted to write better songs haha. I also wanted to just get better at what I’m doing, so I worked on it. As far as the whole ‚music world‘ or ‚industry‘ I think we’ve gotten more of a glimpse into it. It’s hard to explain. I see a lot of bands taking breaks from touring because it’s so expensive and over saturated now but, we’re not traveling in a bus or have crazy production or anything yet. So I don’t really know to be honest. I think you just have to focus on what you’re doing and the rest is all noise.“

„New Day Symptoms“ - an album title like waking up and watching usual horrible „breaking news“ on TV, isn't? Or what is behind?

„It is kind of that. It’s more so the feeling of telling yourself things are going to get better or you are going to get better. You work towards it and do what you can. Symptom of hope I guess really. It’s not meant to sound so negative either. It’s just a reality we all go through.“

How do you see and evaluate this new album within your musical journey?

„Growth. Definitely growth for all of us. I think it puts us in a position now where we know we can write better songs and not be afraid to try anything new or maybe something that seems like it wouldn’t align with our ‚sound‘.“

How was the selection of songs for the new album done - was it difficult or rather easy for you?

„It honestly was pretty easy. We knew we wanted to the record to have a good flow to it. One of the songs we originally played it much slower and realized we needed to pick up the pace a bit for it so it didn’t feel so stagnant. We have one unreleased song that should be coming out soon from the same session as well.“

© Markus Eck, 15.02.2026

Photo Credit: Caleb Gowett

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