Loathe Reinvent Metalcore on 'A Stranger to You'
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- Loathe spent six years crafting their fourth album 'A Stranger to You,' a deliberate departure from their Liverpudlian metalcore origins into an odyssey of mixed and colliding genres.
- The album features guest contributions from Jordan Rakei (jazz-soul production), spoken-word artist Bucki Sugar, vocalist Olli Appleyard of Leeds rockers Static Dress, and production duo Nowhere2run.
- The record draws on wide-ranging precedents — 'Harder to Pretend' echoes Herbie Hancock's early 70s jazz fusion, 'The Way It Breaks' recalls Disintegration-era Cure, while other tracks evoke Muse or Deafheaven's 'Ordinary Corrupt Human Love.'
- Heavy elements persist in tracks like Gemini and Revenant, which the reviewer describes as 'granite-hard,' ensuring Loathe haven't fully abandoned their metal roots.
- 'The Ladder' is singled out as the wildest curveball — a plaintive, astonishingly beautiful love song that strips away distortion entirely.
- The reviewer concludes that in lesser hands the album would have been a 'ragbag,' but Loathe's bold vision is 'so masterfully executed it makes for a thrilling ride.'
Why it matters: After a six-year wait, Loathe gamble their established metalcore identity on a wildly ambitious genre-spanning vision — and the reviewer judges the execution masterful where lesser bands would have produced a mess. It stands as one of metalcore's most radical reinventions since Deafheaven's 'Ordinary Corrupt Human Love,' proving heavy bands can absorb jazz, shoegaze, and electronics without losing their core.
