Shadow of Intent - Imperium Delirium (2025)^{Release ID: 60615}

Well, guess I listen to deathcore now.

This is not surprising given the sudden rise in popularity of genre over the past four years. When the legacy media showered Lorna Shore with praise in 2022 and named Pain Remains their album of the year, it brought in a bunch of new ears into a genre that had been stuck in 2012 for too long. And a budding scene spearheaded it back into the forefront as bands like Signs of the Swarm, Mental Cruelty and AngelMaker enter the publics field of vision, while other, older bands like Fit for an Autopsy and Whitechapel's Hymns in Dissonance revive their older sounds.

Since Lorna Shore are releasing their new album later this year, and I will undoubtedly be asked to talk about that, we’ll save the more in-depth discussions for another day. But Shadow of Intent were a band that I always liked from a distance. Chris Wiseman has proven to be a solid composer of melodic deathcore in the past. The question now becomes “how long can they keep this up without changing their personality?”

Well with the way things are going in the new deathcore scene, it’s hard to imagine SoI (Shadow of Intent) needing to change their sound. While all these new bands are trying to chase the Lorna Shore plateau, SoI are essentially making melodic death metal with a punk twist. The first track, “Prepare to Die” begins the record with some very strong foundations before the vocals enter and bring all the pieces together. On the flipside, “Feeding the Meatgrinder” sounds like SoI trying to make an old school death metal classic. “Flying the Black Flag” shows those deathcore roots a little too plainly; whether it be the rapid-fire vocal delivery from Ben Duerr, or the out-of-place breakdown that closes the song.

Imperium Delirium does have its fair share of obtuse moments, but most of the time those shifts in pace are very well executed. The percussion lays a lot of groundwork here, where a guitar can play the same riff over two very different percussion grooves and can produce two very different reactions from the listener. “Infinity of Horrors” and “They Murdered Sleep” are both early album standouts for that reason. As the album progresses, “Beholding the Sickness of Civilization” continues this trend in the best way on the album. I’ve always enjoyed when the band tries to be a bit more progressive; whether on “The Dreaded Mystic Abyss” or here on “Imperium Delirium”. Meanwhile, the instrumental track “Apocalypse Canvas” doesn’t really do much for me; its inclusion on the record may bring fond memories of “The Dreaded Mystic Abyss”, but it’s played over a very pedestrian melodic deathcore groove and feels like a wasted opportunity.

One thing that I can give Imperium Delirium a ton of credit for is how it does not follow the status quo; either within the modern deathcore trends, or Shadow of Intent’s typical texture. Melodic deathcore might seem like a counterintuitive concept, and even then, SoI are not satisfied. This album has more variety than previous releases and somehow more technical. The Dream Theater progressive techniques have been put on the backburner and replaced with more variety in songwriting, and they are also unashamed to have a little fun, paying homage to their influences.

In the end, I really enjoyed Imperium Delirium. As a melodic death metal album, it is heavy as hell but never feeling like its simply going through the motions of that genre, as it draws inspiration from the old school. As a deathcore album, Imperium Delirium’s breakdowns are filthy without feeling like whiplash. For a genre that I once admitted to “not getting” and treating with bad faith, Shadow of Intent are (for now) the lone deathcore band that I really enjoy and keep coming back to. When it is pedestrian, it’s still pretty good, if a little derivative. But when SoI tries something new, they hit the mark with flying colours.

Best Songs: They Murdered Sleep, Prepare to Die, Beholding the Sickness of Civilization, Imperium Delirium, Feeding the Meatgrinder