Fear has released their final album, “The Last Time,” on Atom Age Industries. Lee Ving and crew present us with an album that takes risks but still feels like the band we know and love. With it’s dirty guitars and razor sharp lyrics, the main themes of most Fear albums are intact: fucking, fighting, and drinking beer while waiting to get drafted into war.
The first half of the album takes a swing and has a very 1970s rock feel to it, which underlies a lot of Fear’s sound, but never had them lean into it. Opening song “Here We Go Again” is a great welcome to the ride about arguing with a spouse. In “Fuel Injected Papa,” Lee Ving channels ZZ Top in his own way—a mid-tempo brag about Lee’s coolness and how age has not slowed him down. If you have heard Fear’s “Live… For the Record,” track “What Are Friends For” will sound familiar. While I could have sworn this song was on one of the other albums with “beer” in the title, the song finally gets a proper studio version here. A cover of Bob Seger’s “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man” caps off some of the random cover songs Fear has released in the last couple years, which included takes on songs from AC/DC and Pink Floyd, and they work alright. “Blow Away” repeats the same line over and over over some hard bluesy rock. “Brick and Steel” and “I Just Can’t Wait to Drop The Big One” seem to be the obligatory war songs on the album, with “I Just Can’t Wait to Drop The Big One” being the shortest song on the album.
“Three Blind Mice” is a repurposed song from the band’s 1978 Paradise studio sessions. While those original recordings had a three-volume, limited release in the last fiveish years, the song has been re-recorded by the band here. I can see why it wouldn’t have been released on “The Record,” but it definitely fits here. The title song “The Last Time” throws us off with an acoustic guitar—don’t panic, it’s just for the intro. “What Happens” contemplates what will happen when we die. “You Don’t Mean a Thing” is a straight-up blues country song that may fit better with Lee Ving’s Range War, but works none the less. One of the highlights on this album is the song “Pain in the Neck,” about doing your civic duty and punching out Nazis and white supremacists. “A Million Bucks” has Lee asking for a large sum of money. It’s been a minute since I’ve heard a secret song at the end of an album. Once “Million Bucks” ends, the closing bars of the National Anthem lead us into “Waiting for the Gas,” another song that was only released as a demo previously.
The previous record, “For Right and Order,” was a more straightforward punk rock album and sounds like classic Fear. “The Last Time” takes some swings and mostly connects. The fingerprints of the band’s history are all over these songs, whether rerecording old demos or using the same dirty punk rock guitar tone on something not necessarily a punk rock song. It feels like Lee is trying something new before he leaves this plane, and it works out well.
Listening to “The Last Time” was cathartic for me, as the person who introduced me to Fear and punk rock in general passed away recently. Fear was one of his favorite bands and became one of mine for a good while. In this time where we have elder punks who lived fast but didn’t die young, these retirement albums are going to become a more regular thing. While I would like to be more conflicted on these, I feel there is more thought put into a sentiment like this. People always ask if it’s better to burn out or fade away, but ending on your own terms gives you control over the light switch. I’d say that Lee Ving and Fear has done this gracefully, but if I did, it wouldn’t be a Fear record.
