For LORNA SHORE, 2020 was nothing short of a reckoning – in a career built on challenges, changes and a single-minded vision. For the New Jersey quintet 2020 signaled the pandemic, a singer change, cancelled tours. The following year presented the band with a staggering creative challenge in the form of the song, “To the Hellfire” from their hugely well-regarded …And I Return to Nothingness-EP. Yet, through it all, they upped their sonic ante with their upcoming album, Pain Remains, that not only aligns with everything LORNA SHORE has hinted at but it also exceeds that – brutally and magnificently. “It feels like a rebirth of everything for us – the energy, the band, the morale,” says drummer Austin Archey.

Pain Remains is the product of the same struggle and deluge of personal and creative hells that’s marked LORNA SHORE’s entire career. “This was the hardest record in our career that we’ve ever had to write,” says guitarist Adam De Micco. “We were no longer in the underdog position. Because of the EP and ‘…Hellfire’, we knew we had to top ourselves. It was a different kind of pressure. For me. the mental struggle was being seen in a new light – we had to make sure that we weren’t going to be seen as some flickering flame.” When the band decamped to Michigan’s Random Awesome Studios with producer Josh Schroeder in the Fall of 2021, LORNA SHORE was on a creative and personal high that carried them through five weeks of hard work and intense creativity. “The biggest challenge for me was me being my own adversary,” the guitarist admits. “Overcoming my own self-doubt and feelings of self-worth.”