Loathe: A Stranger To You review – the masters of metalcore offer stylistic twists and stunning beauty | Music

Loathe took six years to make their fourth album, explaining that they wanted it to be very special. As such, A Stranger to You travels far from the Liverpudlians’ metalcore origins to create an odyssey of mixed and interwoven genres. Punishing riffolas and slabs of industrial noise feature electronic instruments like balm, acoustic guitars, shoelaces, jazz pianos and the spoken word of rapper Bucki Sugar (“ever forward, forever motion”). Other guests include singer Olli Appleyard from Leeds rockers Static Dress, the duo who make up Nowhere2run and – most unlikely – jazz-soul producer Jordan Rakei.

Examples of this genre’s metal departures include Deafheaven’s Corrupted Human Love and Linkin Park’s divisive but compelling A Thousand Suns, but, if anything, Loathe produces more handbrake versions. Block of Flats hurtles between soft air and guttural sounds. The rising Fortress Down and Meet My Maker show a slightly heavier Muse. Hard to compare to remember – of all things – the jazz fusion of Herbie Hancock in the early 70s, while The Way It Breaks is as haunting as the Disintegration-era Cure.

Loathe didn’t give up on heavy music – Gemini’s favorite is Revenant it’s solid granite – but the constant change is supported by a very good writing. The wildest curveball, the plaintive The Ladder, is an amazing love song. In lesser hands this album could have been a rags to riches, but the band’s bold vision was executed so skillfully that it soared so excitingly, you never expected what was to come.