Band:	Existentialist
Album:	The Heretic
Style:	Symphonic deathcore
Release date:	April 28, 2023
A review by:	musclassia

01. Shrouded In Darkness
02. The Zealot's Demise
03. Churchburner
04. Embers Upon Calvary
05. Carrion For Crows
06. The Eternity Gate
07. The Sundering
08. Usurper
09. The Abyssal Embrace

When a song from a relatively new metal band manages to accumulate the level of engagement that Lorna Shore’s “To The Hellfire” accomplished, it’s not surprising to see an ever-growing ensemble of bands emerging with a similar sound; the latest to pop up on my radar and make some form of impact is England’s Existentialist.

If the term ‘symphonic deathcore’ didn’t sadly already exist, I’d be eager to follow up my coining of the genre name ‘Chelsea Wolfe-core’ with the nicely rhyming ‘Lorna Shore-core’, but in fairness, Lorna Shore aren’t the sole pioneers/popularizers of the symphonic deathcore fusion; the likes of Shadow Of Intent and Ovid's Withering emerged around the same time and found their own success. Nevertheless, beyond the pure numbers emphasizing their popularity, there is a particularly sonic template to current Lorna Shore that is keenly reflected in Existentialist’s The Heretic (their sophomore release and debut on Seek & Strike Records): the prolific use of rapid double bass drumming, the containment of the symphonic embellishments primarily to song intros and choruses, the ‘blackened’ hints.

I pontificated in my review of Zwielicht by Mental Cruelty about the (over)use of ‘blackened deathcore’ as a term when discussing most symphonic deathcore groups; when it comes to Existentialist, there are occasional moments where it feels applicable, such as the tremolos cutting through in the chorus of the aptly titled “Churchburner”. On the flip side, I’d say there’s more moments that felt closer in their roots to, not just deathcore, but old school death metal, with the likes of “Embers Upon Calvary” (on which Ingested’s Jason Evans guest stars) and “The Eternity Gate” featuring some legitimate buzzsaw riffing.

Considering the other two points in the paragraph before last, there’s a very healthy dollop of double bass drumming across The Heretic, but the symphonics do diverge somewhat. While not approaching the levels Shadow Of Intent reached with Elegy, Existentialist have fleshed out the symphonics here to be more prevalent and more substantial than those found on the large majority of Lorna Shore’s Pain Remains. The flip side to this is that a smaller group like Existentialist has a smaller budget for production, and the metal and symphonics don’t gel quite as seamlessly here as on the aforementioned records; one moment in particular that stood out to me was a piano line midway through “Usurper” that felt like it was playing above, rather than with, the rest of the song. Overall, though, they’ve done a good job balancing the metal and other sounds.

Beyond genres and production, how do the contents stack up? On the whole, pretty well: Existentialist have been ambitious with some of their writing here, and show that off early with the elaborate 7-minute opener “Shrouded In Darkness”. The introduction to this track brings together strings, choirs, harpsicord, Middle Eastern singing, and more in a complex fusion of sounds, and from there the band power through rapid verses, grandstand choruses (during which the guitar takes over the melody from the aforementioned singing) and breakdown violence. As it approaches its closing stages, all those sounds from the beginning find themselves swimming around a multi-layered pre-breakdown; there’s a lot of elements in the mix, but Existentialist do a good job balancing them all.

From there, there’s a strong run of songs in the first half of The Heretic. The lively strings opening “The Zealot’s Demise” hint at a more prominent role, which comes to fruition as the synth-strings dance out some elaborate melodies across this brooder of a song, while “Churchburner” features an emphatic guitar solo amidst the sea of pounding breakdowns and dramatic blackened choruses. Curiously, at least on Spotify, “Embers Upon Calvary” has a notably more powerful production than the surrounding songs, which allows this blistering rampage to burst out of the speakers, those jagged death metal riffs and double bass attacks sounding particularly emphatic.

From the end of this song onwards, I do think The Heretic begins to lose a little momentum. Having given Pain Remains a listen or two in the period that I’ve been spinning The Heretic, while I still find Lorna Shore’s album overlong and insufficiently varied, there isn’t a song in particular I can say drags things down, but here, while I don’t dislike any of the songs in the stretch from “Carrion For Crows” to “Usurper”, I find notably less here that stands out in comparison with the preceding four songs. Still, Existentialist have one trick left up their sleeve; not to pound in the comparisons, but akin to Pain Remains’ epic ending trilogy, The Heretic concludes with the record’s longest song, the dramatic 8-minute epic that is “The Abyssal Embrace”.

The stars rather align on this track; a melancholic piano introduction sets the scene for a grandiose, evocative track. While running longer than any other song on the album, “The Abyssal Embrace” doesn’t meander far and wide, instead focusing intently on the central melodies and emotional core, and utilizing all the tools at their disposal (including a breakdown that I admittedly feel is a bit out of place). With this song, Existentialist really show that they’re not a group to write off as just another sheep in the herd; there’s real songwriting chops on display here, and a confidence to pursue an idea as ambitious as this. With more tracks in this vein and some slight upgrades on the production side, this group could be well placed to advance to the upper tier of symph-deathcore groups.