To say the hype surrounding Lorna Shore is intense would be an understatement. Lorna Shore have gone from strength to strength, and their latest record, I Feel The Everblack Festering Within Me, is set to bring the band to nosebleed-inducing heights. Those who weren’t won over by Pain Remains likely won’t find much of value in this record, but everyone else will be pleased to learn that all the same grand symphonic elements, monster noises and slurring guitar work is all present and accounted for and of course, there are breakdowns. Sweet Jesus, there are breakdowns.
Some were underwhelmed by the lead singles, but they work so much better in the context of the full record. ‘Prison of Flesh’ acts as a massive overture before the ensuing chaos fully takes place, and ‘Oblivion’ provides some of the more abrasive breakdowns and wild guitar work. There’s nothing that quite hits the same grandiose spectacle of the Pain Remains suite, but it was always going to be an impossible task following arguably the greatest deathcore song of the decade.
Adam De Micco boasts some absolutely preposterous solos throughout the record on tracks like ‘In Darkness’ which feature classic, iconic guitar harmonies and even a key change which feels unusual for a deathcore band. The clean guitar work leading into ‘Glenwood’ creates a sombre calm before the storm, as well as some of the more well done marriages of the symphonic elements and the main instrumentalists of the band, including my favourite guitar solo of the entire album.
The dual guitar approach of Adam De Micco and Andrew O’Connor feels wholly unique in deathcore. Deathcore is a genre that relies on being bombastic and intense with little space for melody or leads outside of the same sweep arpeggio patterns, but Lorna Shore have carved out a voice for themselves as lead guitarists. It doesn’t feel like they’re at odds with their vocalist like some other modern deathcore bands. To quote Todd Howard: “It just works”.
While we’re on the subject, Will Ramos sounds genuinely possessed by malevolent entities at times as he musters up sounds that genuinely feel impossible to be replicated by human vocal chords. The race to create the most inhuman sounds in extreme metal has needed to end for a while, but Will Ramos can take some solace knowing that he will likely be winning that race.
There are instances where Everblack borders on power metal with its massive symphonic elements, like on ‘In Darkness’ and ‘Unbreakable,’ which help give it some much needed variety. The majority of the breakdowns on the record feel natural in the structure of the song, but there are a few occasions where they come out of left field in a distracting manner, but those moments are few and far between and fairly easy to ignore.
The latter half is where the record peaks with the Carnifex-style ragers of ‘A Nameless Hymn’ and ‘Death Can Take Me’ as well as the borderline metalcore riffing of ‘War Machine’. The latter half has much more variety but Everblack is never a slog to get through, considering the length of some of these tracks. ‘Forevermore’ has all the grandeur and emotional range that Pain Remains does, just condensed into a much more accessible runtime, the piano work is beautiful with the vocals and it just keeps building and building and building into what could be the most fluent combinations of symphonic metal, power metal and deathcore.
I Feel The Everblack Festering Within Me completes the collection of critically lauded deathcore albums released this year with Shadow of Intent and Whitechapel releasing masterpieces earlier this year. You can catch them all on tour together in the UK for what promises to be an unmissable apocalyptic event. Deathcore has had a fantastic year of growth and innovation, all signs that the genre is becoming more versatile and creative than ever.
