LORNA SHORE - Pain Remains
Written by: Rod Whitfield - Independent Writer | Tuesday 11th October 2022
When American blackened symphonic deathcore act LORNA SHORE released their seminal single To The Hellfire a couple of years back, I thought they had peak extremity. I thought there was no way they could top that song, musically, vocally, production-wise and for sheer musical chaos and calamity. I thought that would remain their key/defining moment, and everything else that came after could only attempt to emulate that.
I was wrong.
Pain Remains is the work of a highly skilled, highly motivated collective of creatives utterly committed to their cause and at the absolute pinnacle of their game, both internally and on a global scale. This is what elite extreme music sounds like in 2022, and this now becomes the level they must aspire to match and exceed on their next release.
The overriding tone/vibe of the piece is indeed that of absolute extremity, in the flesh-ripping vocals, in the astonishing power and precision of the musicianship, in the blistering but clear and pure production that deftly balances the myriad elements at play here, and in the catastrophic overall delivery of this style of music.
However, if you peer a little deeper, if you pull back the layers (upon layers) a little more, you find something much more than pure chaos, noise and musical destruction. You find nuance. You find symphony (check out the orchestral and choral bombast of Apotheosis, as just one example). You find subtle melody and harmony. You find conceptual lyricism and aural imagery. You find intricacies only possible when generated by artists of stratospheric skill.
Even if your attitude is ‘I hate this kind of music because it’s just all noise’, or ‘I hate any genre of music with a ‘-core’ in the title’, listen very closely, get inside this album (as opposed to a mere surface listen), and you may just hear it.
And blazing like a fire-demon above it all is the inhuman voice of newish frontman Will Ramos. His voice carries all the concepts discussed above: on the surface, to the untrained ear, it sounds like he is simply screaming his lungs up almost constantly for 75 or so minutes. However, if you look into things a touch further (and there is plenty of demonstrations and analysis online if you care to look), you will find that this kind of vocalising is only possible from someone who, a) is tremendously naturally gifted, and then b) has painstakingly studied, worked on and perfected their craft for years and years. In a nutshell, Ramos covers virtually all extreme music vocal techniques here, low gutturals, glass-shattering screams, pig squeals, black metal screeches and more, and does so in his stride.
If there is one minor complaint to be made about Pain Remains, it’s that such an aural onslaught can feel exhausting, it can all be a bit much if you’re not in the mood for it. The between-song and within-song dynamics are more subtle than obvious, and it can feel like wave upon wave of brutality crushing you for 75 minutes. However, this is an album that can be enjoyed in smaller chunks as well as end-to-end. Draw of it what you will, enjoy it in a way that suits you.
The Verdict
Overall, this is an extreme album for the ages. If you enjoy musical brutality of any kind, death metal, black metal, tech death, speed metal, even grindcore, put aside any prejudices you have and wrap your ears around this release, you will find plenty to love here. Pain Remains is one of the absolute best albums of 2022, no question.
9.5/10
Pain Remains comes out this Friday 14th October 2022
Pictured - Tom Barber, Adam De Micco, Will Ramos, Austin Archey + Michael Yager - LORNA SHORE
Photo by: Mike Elliott
