Live Review: Lorna Shore with Ingested at Southampton Engine Rooms!

It’s as hot as hell on the south coast of England’s green and pleasant land which is pretty fitting seeing as tonight will see two of its escapees take to the stage for a sold out show at Southampton Engine Rooms. There is no local opening band, just two heavy hitters on off dates from a European Festival run out to leave the earth scorched in their wake. Security will be on high alert with crowd surfers and fainters a possibility, the merch stand cleverly setup outside the venue to allow for purchases in the sunshine… and believe us when we say the queue for that is as long as the queue to get into the venue was, such is the demand for this pair of bands from the World stage right now.

For Slamchester Death Metal Kings Ingested [8/10], tonight marks the final show of a fourteen week touring cycle for new album “Ashes Lie Still” that has seen them on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean thanks to their new label home Metal Blade Records. They take to the stage as a four piece with a twin axe attack and hit the band with tsunami wave after tsunami wave of skull crushing riffs for thirty minutes of utter bedlam. “Rebirth” opens up the arteries before “Shadows in Time” reduces the venue to rubble with Lyn Jeffs immense percussive battery which matches the intensity of the heat of the day perfectly. “Impending Domination” gets a circle pit before the first note is even played but while vocalist Jason Evans theatrical and dynamic, his voice sounds as horse as they come, completely obliterated by the intensity of their touring schedule. Fortunately riff slinger Sean Hynes gives us some death growls from stage right to give him a bit of a breather. A longer set tonight would have been fantastic but they deserve a rest and bring the curtain down with a vitriolic performance of “Echoes of Hate“. Is it time to work on a new album?

An 800 capacity venue may seem small given the recent touring activities of New Jersey Symphonic Deathcore titans Lorna Shore [10/10] but they are welcomed here like returning heroes by the sold crowd as they open up the floor with a monstrous rendition of “Sun//Eater“. There is a stage block on the right hand side and guitarist Adam De Micco repeatedly steps up as he plays the most incredible lead work throughout the sent, allowed to shine by rhythm guitarist Andrew O’Connor who is seldom in the limelight but a vital cog in the machine when the band play live. De Micco’s performance is so spellbinding it actually reminds of Scott Carstairs from Fallujah. Will Ramos spits, snarls and snorts his way through the set as you might expect, something which only serves to enhance his reputation as one of a handful of seemingly demonically possessed vocalists with a range that defies the laws of physics. The most bizarre thing is how warm and friendly his between song banter with the audience is, hilariously joking that the band are about the play a rarely played cut that we all may know before charging headlong into a brutal rendition of “To the Hellfire“. 36.5 million Spotify streams alone isn’t a word of a lie. What perhaps isn’t a surprise is that the band stick with the cuts they’ve inked with Ramos at the helm, the critically acclaimed “Pain Remains” making up the lion share of the set and rightly so, “Of the Abyss” the other one from the “…And I Return To Nothingness” EP to get an outing. In the intensity of the heat of the venue, the sweaty bodies swaying like marionettes, headbanging with horns in the sky if not pushing forward to the mosh pit. The light show is something special, mesmerising when combined with those leads while cuts like “Soulless Existence” absolutely decimate. After an hour the band disappear from the stage only to return after chants of “one more song!” from a capacity crowd baying for blood to deliver not one but two floor fillers and end the night on a colossal high. Who knew that Symphonic Deathcore could reach arena filling critical mass? This could well be the last time Lorna Shore appear at a club venue upon these shores and tonight, everyone has made the most of it with not an ounce of energy left by the bitter end.