EP REVIEW: Dawn Of The Iconoclast – Worm Shepherd
Symphonic deathcore wasn’t invented by LORNA SHORE, but the band certainly blew the genre up with their 2021 ubiquitous rager To The Hellfire, a great song that unfortunately may have ruined a large chunk of deathcore with its influence. Symphonic deathcore can be great, MENTAL CRUELTY, SHADOW OF INTENT, and of course LORNA SHORE themselves have proven this, but their flagship song To The Hellfire has made every symphonic deathcore band try to make themselves sound as artificially big as possible, and centring their music around spaced out breakdowns with mindless chugging and vocal gymnastics. WORM SHEPHERD is one such band, and while there is some value to be gleaned from their new EP, Dawn of the Iconoclast, featuring their original drummer, Leo McClain (who also plays in notable breakout band PSYCHO-FRAME), and their new vocalist, Ian Smith (formerly of ARCHAIC EPIDEMIC), they still get too lost in the weeds of symphonic deathcore trappings most of the time.
The Omen is a good opening track that establishes the relentless energy of the EP. The orchestration is utilised the best on this track, and the song is well-structured and fresh feeling, although it benefits from being the first song in that regard. This is also one of the few songs on the EP where you can place some cool guitar riffage, which pairs well with Smith’s throaty gurgles and the synthetic strings and choir vocals. The ridiculous punch in the production that comes through in the breakdowns is great, and makes them hit very hard, even if they are pretty standard for the genre. There’s a good guitar solo that makes the track well-rounded overall.
Sanctified Rot is another highlight. It’s much shorter than the other tracks, but it packs more ideas into its sub-four minute runtime than most of the rest of the EP. There’s a rollicking groove that starts the track, lots of great drum switch-ups from McClain, and some of the more creative breakdown writing WORM SHEPHERD has done. It’s a short rager, but it might be the best song on the record with how much ground it manages to cover.
Unfortunately, the rest of the EP is simply too bogged down in cliche for it to be very interesting. Most of the tracks are too long, yet don’t develop well across their lengths, and, again, there is such a fixation on having fast blast beat sections juxtaposed with slow, spaced-out breakdowns while Smith snarls over the gaps in the guitars. This style of songwriting can only be interesting so many times, and we’re well past that point in this era of deathcore. Nothing here is unlistenable by any means, but it comes across as tired and played-out for a good chunk of the runtime.
The worst offender here is Soulless Lament, a song which has the orchestration mixed so loudly during the chorus that it drowns out the rest of the song. Mixing is generally a bit of an issue across Dawn Of The Iconoclast, as the drums are often much louder than the guitars and it muffles much of the riffs when the band isn’t locked into a breakdown. This song also has a key change that doesn’t do anything to push this song to greater heights. This can be executed really well in this genre, as LORNA SHORE has demonstrated, but here it just sort of feels thrown in.
You could do far worse than WORM SHEPHERD in terms of modern deathcore. That said, they pretty much play by the numbers when it comes to this symphonic blackened sound. If you’re heavily craving that, this will undoubtedly have some value for you, but as of now, the band has the chops to make something greater.
Rating: 6/10
Dawn Of The Iconoclast is out now via Unique Leader Records.
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