LORNA SHORE

With their symphonic bombast and viral pig squeals, Lorna Shore have reinvented the genre. Will they be the first ones to headline arenas?

WORDS: STEPHEN HILL • PICTURES: JAKE OWENS

The opening of the show is like something from a horror movie. The sinister choral intro of Welcome Back, O’ Sleeping Dreamer reaches a crescendo as blinding blue light floods the venue. Lorna Shore run onstage. “Berlinnnnn! Are you guys ready to fucking jump?” shouts frontman Will Ramos. Then, punctuated by a “blegh”, plumes of flame shoot up around him.

We’re at the 3,500-capacity Columbiahalle in Berlin, Germany. Tonight’s show has been upgraded from the 2,000-capacity Astra venue –one of many upgrades on this headline tour. It’s the culmination of a year in which the New Jersey quintet have played Download’s Main Stage, supported Parkway Drive in Europe’s arenas, and opened for Gojira and Mastodon in amphitheatres across the US. All this, and they’re a deathcore band.

Will Ramos still can’t believe their luck. “I was just sitting down earlier and I was like, ‘Holy shit, we’re a real band,’” he giggles, when we catch up with him before the show. He does so with the sort of energy you’d expect from a naughty schoolboy who has snuck into the headmaster’s office. “Whether it’s sound or lights or performance, it’s all coming together perfectly and seamlessly.”

Their popularity is even more remarkable because no one saw it coming. After forming in 2009, releasing three albums and enduring endless line-up changes, some saw Lorna Shore as also-rans, or hadn’t heard of them at all. Now, with a charismatic singer at their helm and a cinematically ambitious fourth record in 2022’s Pain Remains, they’re a band reborn, and one of the most talked-about in the modern metal scene.