Music genres are very crowded market places with hundreds of bands fighting for your attention and post-hardcore is certainly no exception. In a genre that’s established a well-trodden formula, differentiation tends to simply come from bands who can execute it better than others. It’s a daunting prospect for any debutante but rather than fight to become one of the best in the game, Liverpool’s Loathe have decided to change the rules instead. ‘The Cold Sun’ is an entirely fresh and exciting debut that infuses elements of tech-metal to breathe fresh life into post-hardcore.
‘It’s Yours’ opens with pounding drums and a fuzzy bass line that provides a huge wall of sound, accentuated further by bone shattering riffs and screamed vocals. The low notes of the guitars are almost djent-like as the heavy assault passes through various dynamic rhythm changes, until a clean vocal break adds melody half way through. The vocals are well-considered and in context with the rest of the track and the guitars switch to an ambient pattern, providing a brief respite before the next onslaught of heaviness.
‘Dance on My Skin’ increases the tech-metal influence, adding jarring riff patterns and interesting time signatures. It dives deep into a pool of relentless bottom-end and doesn’t come up for any melodic air throughout the entire song. Kadeem France’s screamed vocals are powerful and well-arranged and thanks to several tone changes never become grating or overbearing.
‘East of Eden’ maintains the barrage of low-end guitars and chunky riffs but with more melody woven into the mix, aligning the sound back towards post-hardcore. The clean vocals are extremely impressive, adding a welcome hit of melody without sounding forced or trying to be unnecessarily catchy. The outro of ‘East of Eden’ is one of the most enticing moments of the record, closing the track with a procession of clever riffs and rhythm changes that demonstrates all the intelligence, creativity and individual skill of the band in the course of 30 seconds.
While the first half of the record is punishing and relentless, Loathe don’t allow the album to stick to one dimension. ‘Stigmata’ and ‘P.U.R.P.L.E’ shelve the riffs in favour of massive chords and ambience, taking the band’s sound in the direction of Black Peaks and Underoath’s ‘Disambiguation’. While there’s more focus on melody in these middle stages of the record, there’s still a menacing undertone that creeps up on you, keeping each track true to the band’s core sound.
The production is a perfect match for the band’s aesthetic, particularly the tone of the bass which is a revelation from start to finish. Shayne Smith’s bass permeates every track with its fuzzy bottom end, sounding enormous when paired with the pounding drums, fattening out each track for a satisfyingly heavy effect. This allows the guitars the freedom to experiment with intricate lead lines and atmospheric patterns, giving your ear another texture as you move through the record.
The band experiment with electronics and samples towards the back of the album in the form of several interludes. ‘3990’ and ‘The Omission’ meander around loose themes that are more of a distraction than anything and though ‘Never More’ feels a little more substantial, four interlude tracks in the space of five songs makes for a fragmented and anticlimactic conclusion to the record. With repeated play throughs you may find yourself skipping these to get to closer ‘Babylon’ which builds slowly but with a satisfyingly punchy pay-off, but it’s a shame that a record this impressive and well-constructed should need to be skipped at any point.
There are many impressive albums surrounding this genre but there aren’t many that are truly exciting. Loathe’s debut is certainly one. Not all of their creative ideas have worked here, some of the more fringe concepts such as the interlude tracks don’t gel as well as the rest of the record, but the ideas themselves deserve credit and need to be encouraged. The creativity and forward-thinking alone makes for a more refined record than you’d expect from a band so young in their career and suggests that we haven’t heard the best of this band yet. ‘The Cold Sun’ is a phenomenal debut that challenges a stagnant genre and come out on top, providing a much-needed shift in the benchmark for post-hardcore.
MARK JOHNSON