Loathe kept us waiting for five years.
Since their previous album, however, the band originally named Our Imbalance and now led by Erik Bickerstaffe (guitar/vocals/keyboards), Kadeem France (vocals), Sean Radcliffe (drums), and Feisal El-Khazragi (bass/keyboards) hasn’t been idle, with tours, singles, and even a live album. In 2026, they teamed up once again with SharpTone Records to release A Stranger to You, their fourth studio album.
The album opens with the gentle and aptly named Entrance” the first track, whose calm, minimalist piano is eventually joined by vocals and a few ethereal touches that build in intensity before leading into Block Of Flats, where the sound takes on a more jagged yet hazy quality. A few percussion hits herald the arrival of distortion, and the rhythm section, though chaotic, hits hard, reinforced by screams; and although calm returns sporadically, the track remains highly aggressive, even daring to include an abrasive break before transitioning to Fortress Down, which offers a solid modern compromise between the two worlds. The energetic vibe makes the track catchy, but things heat up again with Gemini, the next track and a fairly short and chaotic one, that follows right on its heels while returning to a thick distortion that explodes in every direction with every beat, delivering a raw groove. The mood shifts for the crystalline Nothing Like The Knife, which builds up haunting tones before shifting to a catchy, fairly accessible beat that blends Hard Rock and Electro for Harder To Pretend, combining influences that are unusual to my ears yet quite accessible. Another gentle interlude comes with Athena, a track that starts off very slowly and evokes the first song, both through the closing lyrics and the transition to Revenant, where the sound grows considerably heavier and returns to a brutal approach, packed with dissonant harmonics as well as unsettling keyboards. These keyboards accompany us all the way to the mysterious The Way It Breaks, a fairly long composition that incorporates hints of shoegaze and a prog-oriented approach while retaining those imposing keyboards, before returning once again to a heavy sound with Meet My Maker, which offers a contrast between lively instrumentation and much more haunting vocals thanks to the vocal processing. The track flows easily if you’re into upbeat sounds, but the ending eventually becomes more aggressive before transitioning into Fangs, which immediately takes a darker turn, offering a stark contrast between its different tones, shifting from melancholic clean vocals to an excessively distorted instrumental. A brief moment of calm leads us to The Ladder and its acoustic intro, followed by an extremely gentle passage with hints of Post-Rock, then the lengthy Gifted Every Strength returns to distortion and bestial screams, though it still grants us a few pauses that heighten the intensity of the outbursts. The sonic diversity reaches its peak toward the end, leading into No Stranger To You…, the final track, which features ethereal backing vocals in an attempt to soothe the thick, dissonant foundation—but which ultimately becomes haunting even as the sound intensifies, only to vanish abruptly.
This new Loathe album was clearly highly anticipated, and I’m sure fans are already loving it on first listen. Although very rhythmic, A Stranger To You still has a few slow moments, but remains punctuated by excellent tracks.
75/100