Liverpool, UK · metalcore · shoegaze-metal

Loathe

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Liverpool heaviness that swings between crushing metalcore and gorgeous shoegaze drift — Deftones lineage carried somewhere genuinely new.

Loathe started out in Liverpool in 2011 under the name Our Imbalance, founded by guitarist Erik Bickerstaffe alongside a different singer and rhythm section. Kadeem France joined as vocalist in 2012, and drummer Sean Radcliffe came in the same year. Early influences ran toward synthcore acts like Miss May I and Attack Attack!, a sound the band eventually outgrew.

By 2015 the group had absorbed heavier doses of Deftones and Meshuggah, and the old name no longer fit. They took the name Loathe from a solo thrash project Radcliffe had run under that title, and settled into the lineup of France, Bickerstaffe, Radcliffe and bassist Feisal El-Khazragi that carried the band forward.

Signed to SharpTone Records, Loathe released the EP Prepare Consume Proceed in 2015, reissued the following year as the label's first release. Their debut album, The Cold Sun, followed in 2017, and in 2018 they put out a split EP with labelmates Holding Absence called This Is as One.

I Let It In and It Took Everything arrived in 2020 as their second full album, folding shoegaze drift into the metalcore attack. A year later they released the Things They Believe, a companion record built entirely from ambient material extending the ideas of its predecessor, before returning with the album A Stranger to You.

The band's early promise was recognised with nominations for Heavy Music Awards' best UK breakthrough act and Metal Hammer's Golden Gods best new band in 2018, and a 2020 Revolver readers' poll placed them third among contemporary bands tipped to break into the mainstream.

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metalcoreshoegaze-metal