One moment, someone can be in your life, and the next, they’re gone forever. Sometimes it’s completely out of the blue while other times it may have been anticipated, such as a cancer diagnosis or some other terminal disease.
Death In The Family gives listeners its own proposal of those inevitable and unanswerable questions, which usually revolve around what do I do and where are they now?
Living Weapon was formed by several members of Vein.fm, with Jonathan Lhaubouet on vocals, Jeremy Martin and Justin Legere on guitar and Josiah Soto-Ramos on drums. The project debuted in 2021 with their EP Paradise. Death In The Family is their first full-length album in their discography.
Before the full release, they teased three singles: “The Leaving Process,” “Interspecies Quality Assessment” in July and finally “In Loving Memory” a day before its official release on August 14 via Closed Casket Activities.
Highlights include the clear rhythm that can be picked out in tracks such as "Parthenogenesis," "Qui Transtulit Sustinet" and "When No Light Compared." It's clear that they're highly coordinated, even when the music itself sometimes sounds discordant as metalcore songs do. Sometimes there was structure, and other times there wasn't, but it was nicely balanced to the point that when the music did become a little disjointed it wouldn't completely throw anyone off. The composition and musical quality has that signature Vein.fm sound at certain points, but it’s unique enough on its own that you can tell the two apart. Listeners can comfortably see this as a Living Weapon album and not just another one of their projects.
More importantly, Death In The Family could be considered a concept album. It brings a rough and brutally honest look on the complex feelings and inner turmoil someone experiences in the days before and after the loss of a loved one. Themes of the initial denial or refusal to let go, the helplessness and anger at the fact there’s nothing you can do and the unwelcome, jarring reminder of your own mortality after being free from those thoughts for what seemed like so long are all present in this album. Song titles like "Metastasis," (the medical term for terminal cancer) "Dead Like You," "The Leaving Process" and of course "In Loving Memory" drive this home as well.
Deeper into the track list and through the thick curtain that is the music itself, the lyrics turn out to be extremely powerful. Some are straightforward while others are subtle with their message, really putting the cherry on top when it comes to the album's theme. To any listener who has been through something similar, it's guaranteed to be a deep cut. In a way, this album feels understandable. After someone dies there is of course the anger and the sadness, but there's always something else that's quietly gnawing away at you. It's always there, and you can't get rid of it immediately. Like a new, misshapen mole or an incurable disease, you have absolutely no choice but to live with it. The only way to truly rid yourself It's difficult for anyone to put it into words, but this album does a great job at communicating this specific, unknown feeling.
This, overall, is another promising side project for Vein.fm in the books. This is an absolutely freezing take as Fleshwater, Vein’s other offshoot, did and is doing phenomenally well.
Physical formats of Death In The Family release this September, and you can preorder them here.
