Lorna Shore Paints Myth Everblack
Four bands, four sets of absolute destruction. Lorna Shore brought their new album on the road and some insurmountable talent to accompany them as deathcore’s biggest name in the game’s I Feel the Everblack Festering Within Me tour brought mayhem and circle pits to Maplewood’s golden venue Myth Live.
Don’t like Slam? Then Oklahoma’s PeelingFlesh argue that you just don’t get it. And what more could you ask for from a four piece who have gone on record multiple times to say they sit around in studio and mess about until they hit on something that sounds dirty? The question I had going into this set - the band I was most excited to check out live - was whether that heart-on-the-sleeve honesty translated live, and I can say with a resounding yes that it is absolutely as stupidly fun to watch this four-piece jam out as it is to hear them on record. There’s a refreshing, unique honesty apparent in their presentation - maybe their music could be described as derivative (I don’t think it is) and maybe it could be described as simple (again disagree), but I challenge anyone who thinks reductively of this band to attend a show and not have a grin on your face by the end of the set. It’s impossible.
Ping may be king, but the question following PeelingFlesh’s set was could Connecticut’s Shadow of Intent keep it up? They had a fill in vocalist (Adam Mercer of DeathStroke) as Ben Duerr had to drop off the tour for the birth of his child (congratulations to him, though if you ask deathcore redditors this was the worst thing to happen to them in their lives). Shadow has a monstrous sound, and Adam is a monstrous vocalist - did the swap work?
Yeah absolutely, their set - aided by a pulsating and flashing lighting design, was about as heavy as a thing could be measured, and Mercer in particular occupied the stage with a seasoned stage presence that lifted the music from performance to experience. I am not the world’s most avid deathcore enthusiast, so in scenarios like this I tried to keep an eye on the musicianship on display (something I know Shadow of Intent is well known for), and simply put the technicality skill on display was probably second to none. Most of their songs come at the speed of light and Chris Wiseman’s hands are flying across the fretboard at unbelievable speed, this wall of sound completely overwhelming you but simultaneously forming a coherent picture - a phenomenal show.
Year 3 in a row of seeing The Black Dahlia Murder, and once again what an absolute treat. You can always expect pretty much the same thing from these guys, and there’s nothing wrong with that - best in class musician ship, larger than life stage presence, and colorful lights to accentuate whatever album they are playing from.
This year was a bit of a pivot for them setwise - they typically keep the Nocturnal stuff until later in the set, but I couldn’t resist bobbing my head along to “What A Horrible Night To Have A Curse” from the photo pit. As they weren’t the headliners like they were in 2023 and 2024, they had a bit more of a condensed set, but they still hit all the classics. They still played a song from Unhallowed, they still played “Statutory Ape”, and of course you know they closed their set down with “Deathmask Divine”, which still is pound for pound one of the best death metal songs ever written. They are a well oiled machine that does not miss, and this set was no different!
Lorna Shore’s been a bucket list band for awhile! They’ve had quite a reputation as a live band for going on half a decade and the stars never aligned, but this time it finally worked out, and what a live experience.
Lorna opened with a curtain drop as the opening notes of “Oblivion”, their 8.5 minute epic from 2020’s immortal, and instantly Will Ramos is all over the extra-tall riser they mounted all the way across the stage. Watching Ramos perform, you can immediately see how someone could pull off the sounds and distortions that he does (such as famously on “To The Hellfire”). I’ve never seen anyone possess such sincere intensity in their delivery of growled vocals. Like it or not, he gives absolutely everything he has to his performance and it sounds to-a-T dead on to what is on the record, which is no small feat.
But of course behind him is one of the most instrumentally talented crews around, and behind them is one of the most insane lighting rigs in metal. Monstrous panels and mountains of strobes created a blinking, strobing nightmare to accentuate the destruction on display. Seriously, the overwhelming brightness of it all was flabbergasting even to me, someone who routinely goes and drowns his camera lenses in sensory overload at EDM concerts. It was simultaneously the brightest and most atmospheric lighting rig I have seen in some time, and the LD has put some serious thought into visual design.
Lorna played a selection of …Everblack and classic songs, ultimately closing with all three “Pain Remains” tracks for an encore, leaving the audience devastated but still wanting more. I’m sure when they are back, they’ll be playing an even bigger and even crazier stage.