"He was a big, burly dude who would go to the beach in a Speedo at 65 years old and hit on women with the most confidence you’ve ever seen." How the death of a loved one, pig squeals and TikTok helped crown a modern metal classic

Lorna Shore standing in a lake.

In the same way that the Bible has the Old and New Testaments, you can divide the story of deathcore into two halves: what happened before To The Hellfire, and what happened afterwards.

Before Lorna Shore released their breakout single in 2021, the genre was condemned by many for adhering to its barebone cliches – incessant breakdowns, pig squeals, chug-a-lugging guitars – and refusing to evolve. But then, one six-minute symphonic masterstroke went madly viral, and the mainstream perception of what deathcore could be was ripped wide open.