Live Review: Lorna Shore - Alexandra Palace, London 08/02/2026
Lorna Shore are, true to their word - unbreakable, and bring some of the best pyro that Ally Pally has ever seen to town. You want the heat? It’s there in spades.
Sunday at Ally Pally is always a tough slot; especially when there are train issues. Lorna Shore are aware they haven’t sold out; but they don’t care, they’re here for the fans that actually want to be there – and make no mistake, everyone at Ally Pally tonight is here for a good time – the warmup acts set the stage nicely, even if public transport travel makes getting here for Humanity’s Last Breath an impossibility, which is a shame as they were fantastic at Radar 2024 and would’ve loved to have seen them again. Never fear though – first up for me is Shadow of Intent.
Like Lorna Shore’s rapid rise; other bands have naturally followed in their footsteps and based on their reception you can imagine Shadow of Intent coming back here as headliners in a few years – they look naturally confident and incredibly gifted. We get a run through of the likes of They Murdered Sleep and Flying the Black Flag which captures and warms up an engaged crowd, with Imperium Delirium getting a good runout. Ben Duerr is an absolute showman who can make this sound better live than on the record, which is a feat few can muster. His stage presence is impeccable, and the band’s high energy deathcore tempo is delightful – a true wall of sound in every sense. They kept up the high energy of raw intensity and sonic metal that flowed with every sense – the band coming from Connecticut recognise the size of Ally Pally and its big stage.
Next up it’s a dip into folklore mythos, perfect for a Sunday evening – with a bombastic energy of Whitechapel who I wanted to see as much as Lorna Shore themselves and you couldn’t have asked for a better four act combo anywhere else, Lorna Shore using their platform to honour these deathcore legends. It’s part of their Hymms in Dissonance tour and they drop through a long playthrough of their most recent album – giving fans a run-around and it’s a testament to Whitechapel’s brilliance that they provide as much energy as the headliners; and then some – Prisoner 666 goes down a storm; and the folklore art adorning Ally Pally’s massive wall allows for the fans to embrace themselves in the band’s rich mythology. It seems like many of the crowd have turned up just to see Whitechapel, as this is where the bulk of the audience is the most engaged. From Knoxville yet named after the home to where Jack the Ripper committed a series of murders in Whitechapel; only a few miles away in East London – several hundred years ago, they’re aware of their love their loyal fanbase has and it seems like it’s almost packed for Whitechapel more than Lorna Shore – no mean feat. The pit was out of control and insane from start to finish – crowd-surfing galore, and the band show why they’re deathcore royalty after 20 years together. Frontman Phil Bozeman is a titanic force of nature – tipping into prog doom metal with the skill of a veteran of the game.
The warm-up shatters the eardrums long before Lorna Shore enter the stage as Alexandra Palace’s often-troublesome sound gets a runaround with insane visuals and pyro techniques that you’ve not really seen anywhere else on this level; the heat is felt even towards the back of the pit! The New Jersey deathcore band show why they’ve earned their meteoric rise as they take the time to reward the crowd with “one of the warmest welcomes they’ve ever had”, and Into Oblivion is an absolute belter of a track to kick things off on. It’s a spectacle that has incredible visuals with a-grade production value – and frontman Will is aware of the stakes. This is him, he acknowledges – on a rare bad day, with the flu – “this was supposed to be my redemption,” and it seems like London is rapidly becoming a cursed stop on the tour for him as the last time he played here he had food poisoning. But if this is Lorna Shore on a bad day; they must be legendary on a good one. The mosh pit crowd oblige for the chaos that follows suit: crowd-surfers, circle pits – wall of deaths, the usual go-around, everything that you’d expect from a size of this volume. Will Ramos is a triumphant new-ish lead replacement for CJ McCreery, firing on all cylinders, having had Pain Remains to find his voice and confidence and only grow from there.
For the personal lines and the calm before the storm it is felt – “take me home” leads the searing emotional depth of Glenwood, asking the audience who “left home looking for some kind of peace,” which feels in Will’s own words; incredibly moving. He asks the audience if we can go back to how it used to be; even though it’ll never be the same as things are different – and as a track off last year’s album it instantly stands up there as some of the most impactful additions to Lorna Shore’s mouth-watering back catalogue. It’s also a reflection of where the band are as an outfit – they’ve had multiple years in the game now, and yet remain unbreakable – their track deployed much earlier in the set comes with encouraging messages that the no matter what happens; “through ice and cold / fire and brimstone… we are unbreakable!” Nothing can slow down Lorna Shore; their pace and agility second to none.
And for a band like Lorna Shore to get to where they are now is an accomplishment; Bloodstock veterans turned into metal icons. Them, like Paleface Swiss last month in Troxy, shows that heavy niche bands occupying such a unique genre like deathcore can operate massive venues like this: it shouldn’t exist, and yet it does. They are leading the way for other bands to follow; just because they may not have sold out Alexandra Palace doesn’t mean there isn’t a plan for them there. They deserve to be on the same kind of level of Spiritbox and their ilk as venue-sellouts in the future; and I’m sure the next time Lorna Shore pay a visit to London it will be with better luck for Will. It’s an evening of belonging, of community, and a need to push metal back into that arena of extreme right at the forefront. Lorna Shore are massive – they are; as you might say – unbreakable.
The pain Remains trilogy, is incredible and utilised tremendously as a set-closure. To the Hellfire is bonkers, of course – an appropriate encore as if there as ever was one, and the run out of tracks like Cursed to Die and In Darkness feel like the band going through the motions as one of the best in the business. I loved track opener Oblivion borrowing so much from Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar as a reference point, and the whole thing feels very Hans Zimmer-y with the sonic blasting triumphs in a metal coating. It’s a testament to the band’s rise that it has them looking back and wondering what the hell they did – and Oblivion feels like that addition to the matrix of metal bands influenced by films – the visuals in particular are a giveaway.
It's an early year highlight that makes the most out of the excellent support – Shadow of Intent will soon follow in the wake of Lorna Shore’s trail-breaking progress – with a bludgeoning evening that will send a shockwave to anyone inside the walls of Alexandra Palace. There are no second chances with a venue this big – and Lorna Shore make every moment count, paying homage to what has come before them whilst showing where things can go next.
Words by Miles Milton Jefferies
Photography by Rhiannon Phillips
