On the ground at Lorna Shore’s Louder Than Life triumph

You’d be advised to wear welder’s gloves shaking hands with Lorna Shore at the moment. After a summer spent doing big, cocky flexes all over the festivals of Europe, last week they dropped one of 2025’s most anticipated albums, I Feel The Everblack Festering Within Me. Their arrival into their headlining slot on their stage under a dark but still roasting Kentucky night – preceded by a video of them in the wings and walking on in real-time – is like taking them out of the oven. Previous sightings were of a good band with the wind in their sails. Tonight, they latch on to true greatness and make it scream their name.

The avenue of bars and food stands leading to their stage is rammed with a good 20 minutes to go. When Lorna Shore arrive, there’s pandemonium down the front, as Beatlemania meets brutality. Which would be firmly within their wheelhouse. But here their mix of heaviness – and some of their music is heavy to an almost silly degree – and vast aspiration perfectly ignites. Previous critique was that they’re all churning chug with Dimmu Borgir keyboards. No more. Now they’re a war-like sense of violence, with a dramatic flair that lifts everything into a world that’s entirely theirs.

Will Ramos apologises that, “I recently had leg surgery so I’m not gonna be moving around much.” You wouldn’t know, with his jubilant prowling, but also there’s so much going on with their massive Bring Me The Horizon-ish visuals and video walls that his silhouette is just one thing demanding your attention. Between the strobing red lights and backlit mayhem, it’s hard to know where to look.

There’s loads to be impressed by: the enormous staging, Adam De Micco’s surgically-precise shredding, how massive Oblivion and Unbreakable sound - and they really do sound vast, deathcore meets U2's lofty ambition, if Bono sang like nine pigs eating eight pigs. But it’s all tied together tonight with a sense of being a very special occasion. They bring out original singer and Chelsea Grin frontman Tom Barber for a deadly Sun/Eater, and their visuals bloke Nick Chance for Cursed To Die, without much fanfare, granted, but it all feels like a celebration nobody can quite have total control over.

“Where are my crowdsurfers at?” demands Will, apparently not seeing the hundreds of bodies that have already been hurled over the barrier at this point. It only serves to ramp up an already wild party into a moment where gears shift and levels go up. As they end with To The Hellfire, it’s clear that after a long slog followed by a fast ascent and a whole lotta talk, Lorna Shore are delivering on that promise big time. Galvanised and confident, they’re in a place from which they can only explode louder and more brightly. Sure.

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• Lorna Shore: “The band’s growing so fast that it’s hard to keep your hands on the wheel. Sometimes you’ve got to let it drag you around”
• Lorna Shore: “Things are unbelievable right now… we’re excited to see how far we can take this”
• Fit For A King are ready to rule once again