Lorna Shore – And I Return To Nothingness
Release Date: 13th August 2021
Label: Century Media
Pre-Order/Pre-Save
Genre: Blackened Deathcore, Deathcore, Blastbeatalicious.
FFO: Guttural Butt-kicking crab-walking Deathcore
Review By: Ben Harris-Hayes
*rubs hands together gleefully*
Yes, my pretties!
Prog Daddy’s been waiting for this one…
*coughs*
Sorry! Got carried away there!
And don’t fret…no one calls me Prog Daddy…haha
Having specifically requested to cover this release, I was filled with grim glee when the Ed plonked the link to this into my digital inbox.
Like a lot of people, I first (sort-of-heard) Lorna Shore via that ridiculous cat video that went around a while back which featured a bit of the track ‘Life of Fear’ from, I think, their 2nd EP.
Won’t say that stuff was life changing or even made me think about the band any further after the cat video…so, I was intrigued to come across the new rager, ‘To The Hellfire’, during one of my late night YouTube wormhole treks.That track made me sit up and pay attention, as it did a LOT more people. Rising to #1 on the iTunes Metal chart, amongst other leaderboards of merit; this new iteration of the band is clearly firing on all cylinders and then some.
So, here we are in 2021, investigating Lorna Shore (version 3.0) and their latest EP, ‘And I Return To Nothingness’ on Century Media.
After putting on my big-boy pants and sitting myself down in an ice-bath, I re-joined the path ‘To The Hellfire’ once more for a reminder of what a tune that is before diving into the EP properly…so, this review might be a bit in reverse as that track is the last on the record!
It’s blackened deathcore with some of the, quite frankly, most heinous/crime-against-humanity-level breakdowns heard since…well…we could argue what’s the greatest breakdown ever for days, right? But regardless, THIS right here, Lorna Shore 2021, is utter (hell)fire.
New frontman, Will Ramos, has had the internet extreme metal vocalist communities scratching their heads with his quite bonkers delivery on this track. He’s right up there with Dickie Allen in my book of bonkers metal vocalists of the last 10 years.
‘To The Hellfire’ is just a perfect slab of modern extreme metal…from its great acoustic guitar intro to when Hell literally breaks loose 30 seconds later. The choir and the orchestral arrangements are excellent, and are very much part of the band’s song writing than, by their own admission, a bonus if they had time in the studio like in the past.
It really shines through on this track and makes the chaos somehow beautiful.
One thing that I had thought about was, with such a crushing new single release…would the rest of the tracks on the EP be up to par? And more so, what could the band do to make these other tracks stand on their own, alongside such a clear titan of a track as ‘To The Hellfire’, hmm? Well, I had to find out and after sticking on the aforementioned track one more time to ‘warmup my ears’, I played the EP from the start…
Kicking off with the title track and its Dimmu Borgir-esque synth choir intro, we’re greeted with pummelling blastbeats and rolling double-kicks. Nothing out of the ordinary there.
Vocalist, Will Ramos is rolling about in the song with the glee of a terrifying imp that’s on meth…and it’s monstrous.
The guitars here are locked, loaded and set to Galder (yes, it’s another Dimmu Borgir reference, kiddies) as the tremolo-picked-fire links alongside the synths that are very much pushed up in the mix. The key changes towards the end of the song cracked me up, but purely because I guess I wasn’t expecting it but that’s a good thing…and before I knew it, 6 minutes and 10 seconds had flown by.
Track 2, ‘Of The Abyss’ has a similar (severe) orchestral and choir VST-abuse as the opening track and that’s just fine because we know well that we are very much in blackened Badlands now…and we knew that when we crossed the threshold. (i.e.: pressed play)
The Psycroptic-inspired riff made me grin, because, well, Psycroptic kick tail hard. Even some of the vocals on key vocal embellishments reminded me of the Aussie bands, frontman, Jason Peppiatt…but again, it’s perfectly fine with me.
I quite enjoyed the orchestral instrumentation on this track, even if it completely overshadowed the guitars at points…but I would hazard that it was clearly a production decision and that is perfectly fine.
And finally, we’re back to where we (technically) started with ‘To The Hellfire’…which I won’t bang on about any more because we know it’s a beast.
So, were my fears allayed that the EP would be overshadowed by the monster? Were the other tracks strong enough to stand on their own two legs whilst the monster ran about crushing all before it?
Yes and no, kiddies.
Yes, because I felt the orchestration was definitely more prevalent on the first two tracks and yet No because…well…how the fudge do you beat a monster of a track like ‘To The Hellfire’? It’s not a bad thing at all…most definitely not.
However, I guess I would have liked to hear some different variation in the approach to the other songs but regardless of my preferences, this is clearly a statement of intent for Lorna Shore (version 3.0) and after the recent tribulations that band (and us all have been through, tbh); it’s a crushing slab of metal to play loud and proud.
Will I listen to the EP again for fun? Probably not…but I will be listening to the monster track I’m quite sure.
So, for what it’s worth…here’s some attempt at scoring this. The utterly mad, raging metal fan in me gives it 4/5 because it’s quite OTT and I love that.
The (more considered) music snob in me would have liked a bit more of a switch up on the other tracks and yet very much accepts that this is just an EP from a band trying out their new frontman and therefore most likely a small preview of the album to come…and therefore give it’s 3.5 out of 5.
So, we’re going to go with the 4/5 rating, purely because of the monster track. They brought the big guns on that one and it’s hard to deny its impact on this EP.
(4 / 5)
