Band:	Lorna Shore
Album:	Immortal
Style:	Deathcore
Release date:	January 31, 2020
A review by:	RaduP

01. Immortal
02. Death Portrait
03. This Is Hell
04. Hollow Sentence
05. Warpath Of Disease
06. Misery System
07. Obsession
08. King Ov Deception
09. Darkest Spawn
10. Relentless Torment

Looking at that cover art, I wouldn't have guessed that this is a deathcore album. But that seems to be more commonplace nowadays.

Lorna Shore have had quite an interesting trajectory. I have mentioned my growing fondness of deathcore, but that is especially the case for what has come in the past five years, a clear divide to its sound closer to its inception. Lorna Shore have always had a knack for expanding the deathcore sound, getting it in a more atmospheric and blackened direction (that the cover art absolutely gave away). Through numerous lineup changes, the core duo of the band enlisted guitarist Andrew O'Connor and vocalist CJ McCreery for Immortal. The latter of the two has already been booted for manipulatory behavior and the band has put as much distance between them as possible, but Immortal stands as a testament to a band not willing to back down.

It's kind of a shame that CJ is a shitty person, because his vocals here are a clear highlight. Some of the gurgly growls are in tone of the usual deathcore, but even at their most run-on-the-mill slamcore they feel absolutely bludgeoning. A lot of music on this website clearly aims to be as heavy as possible, and deathcore usually does too to varying degrees of success. Immortal really fucking leans on the success side of the scale in terms of heaviness. While an album like the Leeched one I recently reviewed uses abrasive suffocating production as a means to enhance the heaviness, Immortal does so with a pristine production that makes every albeit-somewhat-overproduced sound pack a punch. Every breakdown feels like the heaviest thing ever when you're listening to it, which isn't something that happens every time with other deathcore bands.

A lot of the album relies on symphonic, melodic and blackened elements, so kinda like last year's Shadow Of Intent album, there is a lot to be gained by properly integrating these influences into the mix instead of just adding it on top. On Immortal it often feels like the guitars and the orchestral parts become somewhat indistinguishable at times, and the former never feel too cheesy or too heavily relied upon. For example, Immortal is clearly not a symphonic metal album, which isn't something I could undoubtedly say about Melancholy. And all of that combined with the aforementioned production gives the album a huge sense of atmosphere and breathing room compared to its more abrasive counterparts. It's colossal, but it's in clear view.

This is a direction that deathcore has been heading to for a while, so it's nothing really new on this album, but it still feels like quite a high point of the movement, clearly showcasing everything that deathcore can achieve once it's been coated in melody, orchestras and some tangetial black metal.