After 2024s Hunger album, one of the best in the blackened deathcore genre of that year, there was a considerable shake-up in the Worm Shepherd camp, who were already functioning in a reduced capacity as a duo and some guests.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but original vocalist Duane Duarte was let go after some alleged questionable behavior (though they still released Hunger with him on it), leaving guitarist Tre Purdue as the lone remaining member. In comes Ian Smith from The Archaic Epidemic to replace Duarte, Thomas O’Malley from Ingested on guitars, and original drummer Leo Mclain (Psycho-Frame, ex Immortal Disfigurement) comes back in the fold. But most importantly, Purdue went out and got Harry Tadayon to help out with guitars (he helped out on Hunger) and orchestration.

Now, Tadayon has quickly become a hot, Francesco Ferrini-like commodity in the scene, doing orchestration for the likes of Ov Ruin, Synestia, and Heir of Fire. He also has his own bands, Vile Sycophant and Hate Within, as well as served some time in Immortal Disfigurement. Dude does absolutely stunning compositions and orchestration, so I was excited to see what he brought to Worm Shepherd. And I wasn’t disappointed.

Worm Shepherd were one of the genre’s top bands before this new lineup, and as you’d expect, Tadayon and co deliver. The 5 songs to introduce the new lineup, delve a little more into the more controlled atmospheric side of The Sleeping Sun EP from 2023, but also do plenty of the genre’s Lorna Shore-heavy tropes, as they have done since 2020’s In The Wake Ov Sol.

All 5 songs are, of course, heavily, heavily orchestral, with Tadayon in top form, delivering a massive layer of dramatic symphonic and choral bombast to the now well-copied template of massive Lorna Shore breakdowns and blackened blast beats.

From the dramatic opener “The Omen”, through the shorter, moody “Feast”, and waltz-y lurch of “Sanctified Rot” to the EP’s centerpiece, the killer,  7+ minute closer “Whispers of a Buried Land”, this lineup is locked in and delivers top-notch examples of the genre. The album’s endcap will certainly stand as one of the best songs in the genre for the year, even having some Lorna Shore-ish moments of melody and emotion built in, as well as the now requisite, huge breakdown that gets slower and heavier.

That said, with sooooooo many bands doing this style now (and well), I have to be honest, with the genre’s saturation going on for a while, they all are starting to sound a bit too similar, especially ones with Tadayon. Frankly, if a song by Synestia, Vile Sycophant, Ov Ruin, Heir of Fire, or Worm Shepherd (or countless other non-Tadayon bands) came on my playlist, I have to look to see which project/band it is.

It still doesn’t stop me from really enjoying all of it; I’m just curious as to who will be the band that tries something just a little different, rather than follow the Lorna Shore template so rigidly.

[Visit the band's website]

---

Comments