LOATHE - A Stranger To You

Six years is an eternity in music. Six years is the time that passes between a work that can redefine the boundaries of a genre and the arrival of its successor. For Loathe, that gap has been filled with anticipation, speculation and mounting anxiety: could they possibly replicate the magic of "I Let It In And It Took Everything", the record that in 2020 transformed them from a metalcore prospect into a generational phenomenon? The answer, now that "A Stranger To You" is finally in our hands, is that this is simply the wrong question to ask.
The Liverpool quartet, in fact, haven't chosen the easy path, because they haven't replicated anything at all. They've undergone a mutation, taking the code of their own sound and exposing it to influences that would have been risky to combine in the same recordings: R&B, jazz, electronic music, spoken word, shoegaze — all of it absorbed and regenerated into a language that is only, obsessively, Loathe.

The album opens with "Entrance", a brief piano prelude that sets the stage for the arrival of "Block Of Flats". The world turns upside down. Warm synths, a pulsing beat, and Erik Bickerstaffe's voice interweaving with the guitars as if they were a single organism. It's a track that showcases the band's new direction – no longer metalcore with shoegaze veins, but a complete fusion of genres. Then comes "Fortress Down", the first true killer blow. A wall of sound that hits you head-on, yet reveals a hypnotic rhythmic structure. "Gemini" is the exact opposite: a frontal assault, both vocally and instrumentally, that never lets you catch your breath. It's the band's answer to anyone expecting a safe return.
The most startling moment is "Harder To Pretend", where the vocals aren't at the centre of the track but become just another texture, an element that merges with the instrumentation until it's almost unrecognisable. It's a calculated risk, and it pays off. "اثينا" offers a moment of respite, a sci-fi soundscape that seems to float in space.

The fiercest single is "Revenant", violent, mechanical, a perfect reminder of where Loathe come from. "The Way It Breaks" is the breathing space the record deserved, made of echoes that linger suspended and a tension that never fully dissolves. "Meet My Maker" blends breakbeat, indie rock and sheer venom into an energetic cocktail. "Fangs", meanwhile, is the single that preceded the album, and here it sounds like an old friend: reverb, clean melodies and that knack for being accessible without ever being predictable. "The Ladder" is the real gem, an acoustic, vulnerable ballad with Bickerstaffe's voice completely laid bare.
"Gifted Every Strength" is the longest and most ambitious episode, an evolution that seems like it never wants to end. It's the album's centre of gravity, the point where everything converges. "No Stranger To You…" brings things full circle: a finale that doesn't try to astonish, but rather guides you out of the journey with an almost spiritual sense of peace.

"A Stranger To You" isn't the masterpiece many were hoping for, but it's something rarer still: an album that rewards you with moments of beauty that few records have managed to deliver.

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30/07/2026