REVIEW: Loathe - A Stranger To You

2278 days between releases, and LOATHE still have time on their side. Six years' worth of work has culminated in the fabled return of one of the UK’s most urgent heavy acts, and much like their earlier discography, when the band deliver, they provide their best.  A Stranger To You was never late; instead, it arrived right on schedule - ahead of the curve and still at the top of their game. 

In the grand scheme of things, it’s nowhere near as long as the two thousand-plus years of history detailed in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, but if the fates have anything to do with it, these two mythic bodies of work released on the same night in the UK seem almost poetic. After all, Odysseus was described as ‘Polytropos’, translated as a man of many twists and turns, and LOATHE’s sonic labyrinth of experimentation provides one hell of a breathtaking epic, a Trojan horse of sonic fury that confronts metalcore head-on. 

As an album shifting over the years between various states of completion, A Stranger To You seemed to loom over the alternative scene almost mythically, with fans foaming at the mouth for its grand debut. After a cancelled tour in 2022 (to complete the album), the record seemed to be pushed further and further away, until the release of Gifted Every Strength in May 2025, signalling that something unprecedented was on the way. The singles have been telling a story of hard-line aggression, the cut-and-thrust brutality of Revenant (featuring ex-CODE ORANGE co-conspirators Jami Morgan and Shade Balderose) and the unwavering gloom of recently-released Fangs. However, this album flips the narrative entirely. 

A Stranger To You is a wicked experiment of letting the references speak for themselves. Amongst the grit of the DEFTONES-inspired shoegaze and the bombastic heaviness, there is some inspired use of personal influence, such as jazz, hip-hop and electronic, that can give so much necessary contrast to this album. The record becomes unlike anything else entirely, moved into its own space that’s so unique and personal. 

Real sensitive care has been taken from the moment the album begins, with a spoken word segment from Bucki Sugar, who, according to an interview with Kerrang!, serves as the album’s narrator, adding perspective against the darkness of the sludgy base segments. From here, the record falls into a brutalist landscape bombarded with a vocal feature from STATIC DRESS frontman Olli Appleyard. From the etherealism of 2020’s I Let It In, And It Took Everything, released a month before the pandemic, there’s an underlying grit that comes through in the bass tone that wasn’t there before. 

In some ways, this makes the album feel loose, with plenty to dissect after the first listen. In tracks like Harder To Pretend, there are some tangy moments of dance, encircled by electronic synths and cascading vocals. The tone shifts again in The Way It Breaks to go full pelt on a face-melting guitar solo. Meet My Maker adds this real pop-centric drive running through the centre of the record, melting garage-style beats and BOSTON MANOR-esque harmonised choruses into a gloriously groovy ooze. The Ladder really challenges the LOATHE sound with acoustic guitar and wandering lyrics that make this track a standout. 

Little inflexions and added musical parts give this record real definition, one that just could not be made in quick succession. Trilling guitar notes that aim themselves towards real moments of catharsis, a dazzling display of Erik’s synths and style. Kadeem ties it all together with outstretched lyrics that are the band’s most heartfelt. And it does not feel pretentious at all; it feels honest and, at times, raw. During the course of this project, the band really found themselves, and it’s that imperfect nature that drives this record home. 

LOATHE are a tastemaker, and this record proves that as much as you can build the foundations of a genre, it’s just as easy to tear them down.

Rating: 10/10

Words: Amber Brooks

Photo: Steve Gullick