Offering a sound that was recognisable and powerful, the New Jersey 5-piece are now a household name in the deathcore scene. Long story short – expectations for Pain Remains couldn’t be higher.
‘Welcome Back, O Sleeping Dreamer’ opens, prefixed by the sounds of choir and strings swelling with vicious intent before exploding into life with a distinctly Lorna Shore sound and guitarwork that lacerates with every strike upon the strings. It is apparent, even this early in the album that Will Ramos will be stealing the show for many fans. Throughout the album, he delivers an incredibly impressive performance, aided by sleek layering and high quality production. ‘Welcome Back…’ provides an instant album highlight, followed by singles ‘Into the Earth’, ‘Sun//Eater’ and ‘Cursed to Die’. These three tracks, while strong as standalone singles in their respective releases, feel like they blend together in shared ideas and themes here.
This is, unfortunately, the notable downfall of Pain Remains as it will leave some listeners hearing few differences between many songs on the album. ‘Soulless Existence’ is well-written, but in places relies heavily on technical riffs and blast beats that are very similar in structure and sound to the rest of the album. ‘Apotheosis’, while at many points exemplifying Lorna Shore at their very best and very heaviest, similarly seems to cling to the formula that much of the album works to as well. If you like this formula, as millions of people justifiably do, then you’re in luck. However, some will certainly find themselves wondering if they’ve heard many of these songs before.
‘Wrath’ is a song to summon demons and open the gates of hell to. The evil overtone of the track is what makes it enjoyable and the atmosphere built is crafted expertly. Once again though, the lead lines, relentless drum patterns and breakdown structure certainly aren’t Lorna Shore pushing themselves in terms of new ideas for the album. ‘Pain Remains I: Dancing Like Flames’ is another single released in the runup to the album and credit where it is due, shows Lorna Shore know how to convey an atmosphere through each song – emotively this track provides a lot, especially in comparison to the ignorant heaviness that the genre is known for. Ramos offers more voice and depth in many parts too, an impressive track without a doubt. ‘Pain Remains II: After All I’ve Done, I’ll Disappear’ begins with a more simple guitar segment which is catchy and hooks well, contains the standout guitar solo of the album, but is bulked out by the classic Lorna Shore verse structure that has become a bit too familiar on this album. To close the album, ‘Pain Remains III: In a Sea of Fire’ runs for over 9 minutes and operates audibly as a recap of the whole album. Every element in this song, despite being written and performed extremely well, has featured in at least one or two other tracks previously. An appropriate and heavy album closer regardless with a notably impressive final 2 minutes.
Lorna Shore build atmosphere and convey emotion while remaining crushingly heavy at times, as exemplified throughout Pain Remains. It would be deliberately ignorant, however, not to point out that this album repeats structure and themes ad-nauseam at times. This is possibly due to the fact the average song length is almost 6 minutes – meaning many tracks are bulked out in a way which wouldn’t have been necessary with a shorter running time. When all is said and done, Lorna Shore have produced a strong album with great ideas and unique styles of heaviness, but they have reused these ideas so predictably between every song on this album that it is mired by a sense of repetitiveness.