Love ‘em or hate ‘em, shill for ‘em, or think ‘em overrated, Lorna Shore is one of the most important bands in the proliferation of extreme metal today. They have captured the conversation in deathcore spaces for years, and their fame has skyrocketed from underground name to viral TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube sensation. Their impact is undeniable.

And they have no intention of stopping.

Strange is the passage of time, if measured by events outside oneself. I have been writing for MetalWani for six years, and this is the third record from Lorna Shore that I have reviewed. Three distinct eras. Tracking their meteoric rise. I gushed about Immortal (and that review can be read HERE). I wrote the longest review I have ever written, an analytical saga to assess a musical magnum opus, Pain Remains. That review can be read HERE.

Of course, I was going to review their newest record. Of course, I was at the head of the line to consume I Feel The Everblack Festering Within Me.

In my review for Pain Remains, I divided the songs into “the singles”, “the non-singles”, and “The Pain Remains Extravaganza” and assessed them on their ups and downs. After many, many… many listens of I Feel The Everblack Festering Within Me, I decided to divide the tracks into three distinct “moods” which I felt segregated the tracks, with some bleed-over. In my mind, the ten-track, sixty-six-minute juggernaut broadly falls into motifs that have been a cornerstone of their songwriting moods since Immortal.

PART I: The Violent

What better way to kick off a Lorna Shore record than with an eerie off-kilter beat to evoke dread, before plunging us into the first motif of this record – violence.

Opening track, “Prison of Flesh” immediately evokes the crushing, destructive pleasure and awe when we first consumed the viral sensation “To The Hellfire”. The track that took them from underground conversations to near-mainstream heroes, carried on the back of “reaction channels,” scaring everyone from the Taylor Swift fans, to grandmothers, to classically trained vocalists. This record’s analog, “Prison of Flesh,” carries the same level of unapologetic intensity, with plenty of blast beats, sonic boom breakdowns, rapid-fire riffs, and razor-sharp solos. All that we have come to expect from Lorna Shore. It isn’t unexpected; they aren’t trying to re-invent the wheel, they want to crush us with it! Another facet that separates Lorna Shore from the multitudes of pale imitators is their ability to weave complex lyrical themes into their soundscape of hellish proportions. “Prison of Flesh” deals with the anguish of a mind slipping away, the very real and very traumatic effects of a loved one with dementia. While the “vocal Olympics” have been toned down on this record, our beloved vocal dinosaur cannot help but flex at least a little bit in the concluding moments of this track. “Prison of Flesh” is 2025’s “To The Hellfire”!

Not to be outdone, “Death Can Take Me” lives up to its namesake. A blackened monstrosity, the track is in the better half of my preference on this record. With a catchy verse-riff and an underlying menace, this track is non-stop violent bliss. Fans of “Into The Earth” and “Cursed To Die” (off Pain Remains) will enjoy this one! By far my second favorite track, and the first time that Lorna Shore has truly surprised me. “War Machine” is blisteringly fantastic. Channeling SciFi-esque synth layers, the track embodies the “War is Hell” aesthetic. With elements of “Argent-core” (Doom 2016 OST by Mick Gordon), the track is not the fastest; this “stripped back” track has a pummeling groove that feels fresh even as listener fatigue is setting in for I Feel The Everblack Festering Within Me. I fully entreat Lorna Shore to pursue this direction further on future records.

PART II: The Triumphant

As violent and extreme as Lorna Shore can be, there has always been a thread of “victory” in many of their songs, overcoming the odds, breaking the shackles, and being triumphant.

The second single, “Unbreakable”, is a testament to their commitment to writing songs about emerging victorious, both in theme and sound. At first listen, “Unbreakable” was among the weaker tracks on the record with its almost “cheesy” central melody. But the track thematically fits into the motif of the record. “Lionheart” also centers around a central melodic theme that evokes a more positive emotion, an upward trajectory. Make no mistake, these are bog-standard Lorna-Formula songs. A structure that has become a meme unto itself. If you are among those who enjoy their structure, these tracks will be enjoyable. To those who wanted something “new” and “different”, these are not the tracks to look at.

PART III: The Malevolent

Lorna Shore is a symphonic blackened deathcore band. Sometimes we forget the “blackened” elements; the sonic evil borne of their black metal influences is plain to see on certain tracks of this record. A side that speaks to the darkness within us all – malevolence.

“In Darkness” is a call to our own victorious malice. The grandiose symphonic layers blend “the triumphant” but with more sinister overtones. Fans of “Hollow Sentence” and “Obsession” (from Immortal) will find familiar emotions here. Undoubtedly, my favorite track on I Feel The Everblack Festering Within Me, the track that forced me to take note, “A Nameless Hymn,” is the blackest Lorna Shore has sounded like since Psalms. A verse riff taken straight from modern-era Behemoth (“Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel”) with glorious blaring trumpets carrying us into a Dimmu Borgir-ish chorus. This track is yet another example of Lorna Shore quietly denying the deniers, those who sling mud that Lorna Shore has run out of creativity and rehash their winning formula to diminishing returns. The run of “Death Can Take Me” to “War Machine”, culminating in “A Nameless Hymn”, is my personal favorite sequence on this record.

PART IV: The Repentant

The first single off I Feel The Everblack Festering Within Me heralded the new era of the band. After the rousing success of Pain Remains, conversations surrounding what direction the band could possibly take captured online spaces. The first single of this record, “Oblivion,” showcased an underrated side of what this band can achieve. To create a sense of intense melancholy, regret, and anguish – repentance.

With the soaring chant to the heavens, “What have we done!” the band created a singular anthem, the perfect single to capture so many songwriting elements through their various releases. One of my favorites on this record, and a song that will find itself on many fan-favorite lists, this eight-minute titan is a story unto itself. With a cinematic video, “Oblivion” was the perfect way to show that Lorna Shore still had more to give with each new release. Similarly, “Glenwood” opens with a slow, mournful melody, and the lyric “Can We Go Back?” pushes the track into the melancholic category. With some flavors of the Pain Remains trilogy creeping in, this track also tugs at the heartstrings, without compromising on push-forward songwriting. The record is jam-packed with killer tracks, and it is only natural for a few to fall by the wayside. Unfortunately, “Lionheart”, “Glenwood”, and “Unbreakable”, despite their anthemic nature, fall behind the other tracks in terms of re-listenability.

Album closer, “Forevermore,” is the “Pain Remains Trilogy” compressed into a single track. Opening with quiet operatic vocals leading into cinematic soundscapes, the parallels to “Pain Remains” are clear. A more concise package of all the moods explored in this record, “Forevermore” is the grand finale of I Feel The Everblack… “Forevermore” attempts to capture the same vibe and tells a sprawling musical epic. A fool’s errand to top the gut-wrenching, magnum opus that was the Pain Remains trilogy, three tracks that reduced giant brutes like me to a sniffling mess.

As an aside, with an album title like I Feel The Everblack Festering Within Me along with fantastically grim album art (a massive step up from the minimalist Pain Remains artwork), I feel oddly left hanging, the album title having promised a more blackened direction. Even with winning tracks like “Prison of Flesh”, “Oblivion”, “In Darkness”, “Death Can Take Me”, “War Machine”, and “A Nameless Hymn”, only the last of which truly represented the mood created by the album title. I wonder if Lorna Shore had other tracks that better fit the title but were left on the editing floor.

I sincerely feel that I Feel The Everblack Festering Within Me is the record that “Pain Remains” wanted to be, but fell short of. A more coherent and cogent product. However, this record has similar failings. Many of the tracks fall prey to the “Lorna Formula,” which recent years have ground into the dirt with numerous copycat bands trying and failing to replicate. While not as egregiously common, the plague of the superfluous breakdown persists on this record as Lorna Shore is wont to grind the momentum of a fast-paced track to an absolute halt with a jarring breakdown. I am encouraged by tracks like “War Machine”, “Oblivion”, and “A Nameless Hymn” that showcase new avenues of the songwriting engine, and hope that Lorna Shore moves away from the quickly-staling formula, experimenting with new elements. There is a step up in the production value on I Feel The Everblack Festering Within Me. While not as stonewalled to death as Immortal and Pain Remains, there were still ample cases of the auditory crowding of so many layers of sound. Fortunately, the guitars are much punchier and more defined on this record, although they still fall below the mark on the busier arrangements. A step in the right direction, but not quite there yet.

With an EP and two records with this lineup, the Lorna Shore camp is firing on all cylinders. While it is easy to forget guitarist Andrew O’Connor, I personally did him a disservice by diminishing his contribution to the songwriting machine. Since my review of Immortal and Pain Remains, I have discovered that O’Connor is the mastermind behind all the orchestration, keys, soundscapes, etc. in the band. The soaring epic motifs on the recent records are his children, and for that I am grateful. He explores different elements on this record, and I wonder what tricks he will showcase on the next record. Drummer Austin Archey is a monster, plain and simple. His unyielding ferocity behind the kit proves that deathcore can go toe-to-toe, even surpassing the drumming intensity of pure “death metal”. His robotically precise blast beats, double bass, and cymbal work push every riff to newer heights. Although my complaints with his efforts on Pain Remains persist here. His ferocity blurs into white noise quickly and is a large contributor to listener fatigue with these records. Bassist Michael Yager is another unsung hero of the band. To follow the dizzyingly technical guitar riffs requires expertise very few musicians can endure, yet Yager follows through with calm focus. I do appreciate that the bass levels are slightly higher in the mix with Everblack Festering, but I greedily want more bass in future records!

Guitarist Adam DeMicco, so much has been said, so much that can be said. Longest serving member of the band, he has become synonymous with the band itself. Very rarely do deathcore guitarists get the fame they deserve, as they are often overshadowed by the vocalists in the genre, but DeMicco (along with Chris Wiseman of Shadow of Intent) is carrying the genre on their broad shoulders. I could write an entire essay on DeMicco’s songwriting, but we’re all familiar with his chops. And so, we get to Will Ramos, the poster child of modern deathcore vocals. Surprisingly restrained on I Feel The Everblack Festering Within Me, Ramos shows a more mature sense of control over his vocals, as his technique tightens with each release. No longer needing to prove himself, and with an army of vocalists vying to topple him from the throne, Ramos has settled into his crown. 

I Feel The Everblack Festering Within Me is the natural successor to Pain Remains in every possible way – good and bad. While the album steps in a more favorable direction, many of the problems persist. This record is a cohesive amalgamation of the most violent, triumphant, malevolent, and repentant aspects within us. Another example to show why Lorna Shore continues to be the flagbearers of symphonic blackened deathcore.

Sigh, to the Album of the Year list you go, Lorna Shore.