By Jase Walker
Every now and then there’s a show that comes along that you can only think of moving heaven and earth (or in this case flying to another country) to see, and Lorna Shore’s Manchester date with Rivers Of Nihil, Ingested and Distant is absolutely it. This colossal lineup has been stomping around Europe and in the home stretch, a Saturday show in Manchester.
Even with the initial turnout before Distant takes the stage, there’s already a buzz in the air and you can absolutely tell that the anticipation of this show is unreal.
Distant starting the show with a SpongeBob singalong, whoever said metal bands take things seriously? Anyway, time for blast beats and screaming. The show has zero ramp up, it’s straight to abysmally heavy riffs, screaming, pig squeals, you name it, Distant are kicking things off in the right way and the crowd’s already going wild for it. It’s hard to overstate just how absolutely bloody filthy this all is, a huge pit to my left going mental and Distant are thriving off this energy. Dissonant, frantic chords mixing with grooves and relentless force from the drums see the Distant show maintain an insane momentum, barely any time to catch breath as overwhelming brutality smashes the crowd.
Absolutely fucking ridiculous is the best way I can really describe this, Distant as an opener on a tour like this is a stroke of genius and they’ve unquestionably set up the rest of tonight to be a belter. I’ll definitely be seeing these again in Haarlem in the coming year.
Ingested have probably been looking forward to this show for the whole tour, it’s a hometown show for these lads and seeing them thrive off the insane amount of energy that the crowd is giving back to every single riff, blastbeat, and breakdown is immense. Admittedly I just can’t get on with this whole “Crouching and jumping” nonsense, it’s super common now and I wish this would bloody stop.
Other than that Ingested sound fantastic, lumbering, relentless riffs that are built from the ground up to smash you in the face with nothing held back. “We want you to show us why we call it ‘Slamchester'”, the crowd gladly obliges by turning up that pit energy to “Batshit crazy”, I can feel the sway of it through the people near me. Ingested really scratches that lizard brain-like itch where you don’t want any sort of delicacy, you just want the dirtiest, meatiest, most outrageously filthy riffs and grooves.
Manchester’s sons have done another show proud and continue to be one of the premier death metal bands from this city. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a death metal conga line but it seems they’re going to give it a go… And it didn’t quite work but oh well, people seemed to enjoy it anyway so that’s a plus I suppose! Although managing to get a massive crowd to sing a bit of Wonderwall in unison was quite something, standard Manchester!
Third tonight and penultimate band, Rivers of Nihil for a bit of more proggy death metal, they kick things off and the bass is almost inaudible, no real presence to it which is a bit disappointing. It’s worth noting as well that the band lineups changed a bit as their dedicated vocalist Jake is no longer in the band and duties have been given to the bass player. A bit further in it seems the bass has been turned up a lot and so the sound overall has improved a lot, I’m not quite sold on the vocal work though compared to previous experience with Rivers, Jake left some pretty huge shoes to step into and I think it misses the mark. It’d be nice if the tapping and slap work that he’s doing on stage was actually audible as well.
Ultimately I feel like this set has been quite a let down, I don’t feel that the lineup change has done them any favours and the sublime work on Owls and The Work may end up ultimately lost in favour of approaching material as a 4-piece. It’s clearly not shared by the audience however, who have been pretty actively losing their shit the entire set as people eagerly barge past me to fling themselves into the ever spinning vortex of the pit in front of me. I don’t really feel that there’s any real energy coming across from the band, they seem a bit bored and going through the motions and that in addition to the new format doesn’t do their material justice. Quite a shame as I was really looking forward to seeing them again.
And finally tonight, Lorna Shore, the band that’s been causing massive waves throughout the metal world recently. Will Ramos and his ability to project some insane vocal work alongside the incredible musical abilities of the rest of the band has resulted in some of the most amazing extreme music in years. Immediately, pyrotechnics fire off, the crowd is going wild, and Will’s signature gutturals are loud and clear, an immediate show of extreme force.
It’s astounding how they can mix earth shattering breakdowns with intensely melodic and symphonic passages while remaining coherent and not jarring. The sound balance is excellent as well, the bass guitar is clear and present, vocals front and center while the drums and guitars fill in the rest, top notch. Pints, jackets, legs, all flying around closer to the front, a non-stop sea of movement and activity with barely any encouragement from the band, Manchester is bringing it for a Saturday night show.
It’s barely nearing the halfway point and the intensity of this experience proves that Lorna Shore have worked tirelessly to earn a headline tour such as this. No real live performance gimmicks or fancy production, just an incredible light show and the band absolutely killing it. It’s hard to not have your attention drawn to Will so much, his vocal range is astounding and the variety of noises he’s able to make and then consistently do this for weeks at a time is a rare quality even in extreme metal.
There’s been a huge amount of crowd surfing going on as well, I don’t doubt the security are working overtime on it right now as it looks like there’s about five people every 30 seconds at some points! It’s probably not too much of a reach to say that Will Ramos is one of the best metal vocalists of the current generation, genuinely incredible how much he can put through that microphone.
“We’ve got one song left” he says with about 30 minutes left on the set, so this means it’s time for the epic “The Pain Remains”? No not quite, “To The Hellfire” serves as the finale to the main set but there’s no chance they would skip out on their 3 song epic to close the encore out. This wraps up a stellar set. I feel a bit annoyed at myself for sleeping on these for so long but this has truly been an incredible experience and Lorna Shore are at the undeniable top of their game right now. Worth flying over to visit Manchester again for this show, absolutely bloody sublime.
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