LOATHE – A Stranger To You

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6.0

• Bands:
  LOATHE
• Duration: 00:55:01
• Available from: 07/17/2026
• Label:

• Sharptone Records

Having met by chance in 2019, supporting Rolo Tomassi on a date held in Rozzano, within the walls of the Circolo ACSI Svolta, Loathe had the impression that they could take flight shortly thereafter, becoming a band of some importance. We frankly would not have expected the popularity obtained from that summer day to today, although perhaps we might have suspected it, if we had then hypothesized a possible turn towards more melodic, smoother and somewhat pandering registers, like those today. Something whose seeds were already contained in what the band played – in a much more energetic way – at the time and had made the second album “I Let It In And It Took Everything” very brilliant. A combination of metalcore, shoegaze, nu metal, djent, rarefied airs at the limits of ambient – later effectively explored in the instrumental album “The Things They Believe” – ​​masterfully orchestrated to travel between the lines, resulting neither too extreme and syncopated, nor too licked and frivolous. Up until then the group, despite denoting a certain cunning and a perceptible propensity for easy and pleasant melody, was still firmly in a context of metal/hardcore/alternative rock that was rather hard and full of anxiety.

“A Stranger To You”, the fourth studio album for the Liverpool band, arrives at the end of a fruitful period on the live front, with the excellent performances during the tour supported by Architects and Spiritbox – also passing through Italy in February 2024 – which contributed to dramatically expanding the hype for young English people. This new work seems to be the result of greater calculation, calibration to become something that will certainly appeal to a very transversal segment of (young) fans, just as Loathe's proposal is transversal and all-encompassing, after all. The most violent outbursts, overloaded with heaviness, noise and a hint of complexity, are relegated to only a few points of the tracklist (“Block Of Flats”, “Gemini”), almost as if they had to stay in watertight compartments and act as a small variation, not as the beating heart of the album.
The stylistic line is in fact dictated by something else, by compositions that incorporate a very soft melodic sensitivity, including synthetic percussion, electronic effects, samples and synths that contribute to giving an ethereal and rarefied edge to the whole. The r'n'b influences, previously in the background, now appear much more important, also significantly characterizing Kadeem France's clean voice, even more in the foreground than in the past and a true focal point for Loathe's sound today.

“A Stranger To You” seems conceived with the declared aim of climbing the charts, putting in a corner all those more complex, furious and destabilizing elements that acted as a driving force in the first two albums, obviously alongside the hyper-melodic component that balanced the more fiery aspects. The latter, as already mentioned, either stay on their own, or disappear completely, instead supporting a very placid and relaxed feeling on the part of the band. On this front, we can't say that the guys from Liverpool are exactly inconclusive, but honestly we struggle to find in these songs something truly exciting and which stands out for its amazing qualities.
Songs like “Fortress Down”, or “Harder To Pretend” or “The Ladder”, certainly have silky melodies and refined arrangements, mellifluous vocal lines of sure impact for a certain audience devoted to calm and enchanting alternative sounds, but we don't think they have the stature to become classics, to become something that will be remembered with great enthusiasm in the years to come. The multifaceted identity of the band has gradually become watered down, giving in to the temptation towards chart-topping sounds, glossy, easy to digest and gilded in every detail. A labor limae successful in form, perhaps also in substance, for those who appreciate modern rock contaminated with electronics, sweetened by any harshness and excellent as the background for a story posted on social media. In short, there is nothing to complain about building a good, successful product. If we talk about ideas, creativity, effort to create something that can last over time, we are not there much. In any case, we believe that “A Stranger To You”, precisely because of how it was conceived and created, will expand the band's fan base even further, making it a prominent name on the international music scene.