The Return of Lorna Shore: A Symphonic Brand of Deathcore

Lorna Shore is back, baby. Not that the longtime New Jersey deathcore outfit really went anywhere, but after a recent lineup shuffle, including bringing new vocalist Will Ramos on board full-time, the future of the band seemed uncertain, at least to those on the outside looking in.

Ramos started filling in during live shows in 2020 before solidifying his spot as frontman in 2021. He says that whenever he and his Lorna Shore bandmates hit the studio to record the 2021 EP …And I Return to Nothingness and subsequent album, Pain Remains, which was released October 14, the growls and blast beats flowed. It’s safe to say that Ramos’s full-length debut has once again pushed Lorna Shore to the forefront of the subgenre, which the band helped popularize after getting together in 2009.

“Honestly, it was super comfortable. The band gave me a lot more freedom to just do whatever I wanted with it. When we were writing, I felt like this was a very good expression of the things that I wanted to move towards. Even the rest of the band, instrumentally, it’s the same exact way. As far as lyrically and throwing all the ranges in there, this is exactly the Lorna Shore that I have always wanted to see made, so it’s really cool to finally be making it and putting it out there for people to listen to it,” Ramos says of Pain Remains, which features his impressive vocal range, from pig-squealing to screeching.

“I wanted to bring everything, as far as the ranges — highs, lows," he continues. "Then there’s different tonalities and different ways to push words to make them sound a certain way. I wanted to do a lot of that. At the same time, I wanted it to sound emotional. A lot of Lorna and deathcore in general seems very monotone; there’s isn’t a lot of emotion going on. Usually, it’s just anger and shit. That’s what you think of when you think of deathcore. I wanted to bring a new element lyrically, as far as ambience. I think we freaking nailed it with this one, especially the ‘Pain’ trilogy at the end. It’s super emotional, and it brings pretty much every element of Lorna that I ever wanted to hear. We somehow made that happen in this album. It’s kind of crazy.”

Hear the latest iteration of Lorna Shore on Saturday, November 12, at Summit Music Hall. Aborted, Ingested, AngelMaker and Ov Sulfur are providing support.

Even though he cut his his teeth in bands such as Monument of a Memory and False Images, and has gained more than a few followers via his YouTube channel, Ramos admits to experiencing some nerves when he first took the stage with Lorna Shore after replacing short-lived vocalist CJ McCreery.

“At first it was super stressful," he says. "You never know if people are going to actually like it or not, like, ‘He’s here, but does he fit the image and the sound sonically?’ I remember when I first came to fill in, sitting side stage and listening to everybody shouting ‘Lorna Shore’ and them not having any idea who the actual vocalist is,” he recalls. “I was just freaking out on the side, like, ‘Jesus Christ, this is going to be so brutal. Either they’re going to love it or they’re going to hate it.’ Fortunately, they loved it, and that gave me a lot of inspiration to just keep going. At this point, I just run up on stage. I’m not nervous. It just feels like this is where I belong. It took a while, but I’m here.”

Pain Remains marks that arrival. The 61-minute album lays it on thick with songs such as “Into the Earth” and “Sun//Eater,” but crescendos unexpectedly with the aforementioned “Pain” trilogy — “Pain Remains I: Dancing Like Flames,” “Pain Remains II: After All I’ve Done, I’ll Disappear” and “Pain Remains III: In a Sea of Fire.” It’s about as close as you’ll get to hearing a classical composition on a deathcore record, which is another reason why many people have added the tag “symphonic” in front of Lorna Shore’s brand of the subgenre. Ramos likens the album, particularly that trio of songs, to battle scenes from the Lord of the Rings films.

“You ever see a movie score like The Lord of the Rings, and they have that super-epic freaking fight, and they have this insane, epic music going on in the background, and you don’t really need to be into any kind of genre to enjoy that? You just hear it, and it feels epic,” he says. “I feel like we bring a lot of that in our music to make people feel like when they’re listening to the album it is a journey, it is a movie, and when you get to the end, it’s climatic. Everything just flows together, lyrically, symphonically.”

Lorna Shore, 6 p.m. Saturday, November 12, Summit Music Hall, 1902 Blake Street. Tickets are sold out.