Loathe – A Stranger To You (Sharptone Records) [Alex Swift]Stark, glacial guitar textures open
Block Of Flats. Its one of many moments on
A Stranger To You that feels esoteric, yet speaks to the experience of loneliness, of feeling like a stranger to all those around you. This project frightfully captures the dread that eats away at our lives, when you’re afraid to pass one of your neighbours on the dark stairs that lead to the place where you reside.
“Caught in this familiar state of one-way empathy. As you take it day by day, the subtlety. What could be slowly starts to deafen me” Oli Appleyard sings on the chorus, his melancholic drone evoking experiences of disassociation, and overwhelm.
These songs confound with the absence of conventional structure. Harder To Pretend constantly alters and shifts, the melodies proving amorphous and erratic like gusts of smoke caught in a storm. It’s a song about wearing a wry, liars smile, knowing that the “words inside” you can’t stay locked up forever, despite your efforts to keep them hidden.
Many of the changes on this albums feel like disruptions to the illusions of safety – chasmic ruptures to the ground we consider holy. The visceral dance beat that splices Gemini in half catches the listener off-guard, giving them yet another hurdle to overcome in and album that’s frankly exploding with creative left-turns. And yet, with time, you settle into them with a kind of grace that comes with embracing chaos.
Perhaps the most challenging aspect of this album is the sound design. There’s an intimate, guttural quality to even some of the quieter moments, as the textures seem to reverberate, and the compositions rattle. However, do not mistake this for lack of care. Fortress Down, for instance, is incredibly detailed, the subtle use of atmospherics intersecting with the cascading guitar work, in a way that elicits sensations of vulnerability in the face of anxieties. Despite the harshness of the production, its strangely beautiful.
Revenant is the enormous centrepiece of the album. Beginning with an exhilarating crash of guitars and synths, before plunging into turmoil, this is a piece about how we recognize trauma. “Burying your head in the sky, you split so close to the sun. Bodies transform. Others, they’re done” runs one line, illustrating the contradiction in the way in which moments of turbulence can cause us to adapt how we live, or destructively shrink into ourselves. It’s a turning point on the album, before a confessional and sanguine second half.
The Way It Breaks is musically the adverse of the preceding song. The gentle rise and fall of the synths and percussion lends itself excellently to our narrator’s story of witnessing a friends life burn down in front of their eyes. “Does it break your heart, the way it breaks mine” they wonder in the chorus, before an ethereal instrumental section lays bare the depth of anguish being addressed.
The following Meet My Maker is made all the more cathartic when viewed as part of a story in which the protagonist longs to transcend the trappings of suffering and agony, yet risks flying too close to the sun in their quest to do so.
One of the most beautiful moments here is The Ladder. A stripped-back acoustic ballad, the piece feels fragile, yet joyful. “Brand new like a sunrise, and over in a day” Kadeem France ruminates, his words touched with a sense of sadness at what has passed, and acceptance of the temporal nature of both suffering, and joy.
The contradictory nature of Gifted Every Strength, which artfully transitions from vicious fury to solemn peacefulness, reflects the practice of learning to walk away from a situation that can only bring you hurt. The moment of burnout when someone has poured their heart into a relationship, a way of life, or an endeavour that no longer feels worth the sacrifice.
A Stranger To You does not reveal any specifics. When the title is inverted on the closer No Stranger To You, its not clear who the song is spoken to. Whether it’s about a moment of escape, or a reflection on past lives is arguably less important than the emotions that the piece evokes.
To me, Loathe’s long awaited third project see’s them expressively capture perceptions of isolation, and the process of realising its effect. The changeable musical landscape of the record, mixed with the earnest lyricism, makes this a raw and often demanding listen. See past that however, and this is an album that was absolutely worth waiting for! 10/10
Protest The Hero – Within (Independent) [Spike]
Protest The Hero have spent over twenty years operating in a space completely of their own making. They are a rare breed: a band with the technical chops of a progressive metal act, but the beating heart and irreverent spirit of a room full of punks. Six years on from Palimpsest, their new record Within feels like a genuine shift. It’s tight, compact at thirty-five minutes, and carries a quiet, personal reflectiveness that draws you right into its orbit.
What I love about this record is how its message projects back onto your own life. On early albums, the lyrics leaned heavily into grand storytelling and mythology. Here, vocalist Rody Walker brings things right down to the pavement. He writes about real, messy human interactions with the standouts on this album covering arguments in driveways, grief, and the struggle to keep your heart open in a world that seems determined to harden it. At its core, the album’s bottom line is simple: be more kind to the people around you. But they deliver that message wrapped in a whirlwind of punky, mathcore-inspired goodness.
The opening track Mouthpiece sets the tone immediately. It’s fast, winding, and packed with geometric guitar work that skitters over a heavy post-hardcore frame. It leads straight into Fishhook, which is easily one of the standouts on the record. It takes a honest look at political disagreement and personal frustration, balancing a punky, optimistic hook with the realistic admission that finding common ground is tough. It’s melodic, relatable, and impossible to get out of your head.
Musically, the band hasn’t lost an ounce of their signature spark. Grandfather’s Axe has a great rock ‘n’ roll swagger to it beneath all the odd-time signatures, while The Orchard gives us one of their catchiest, most anthemic choruses in years. Then you hit Liberty Spike, which might be the most emotionally raw track Rody has ever written. It deals with loss and unsaid goodbyes, backed by a dark, surging dynamic that feels like classic 2000s post-hardcore done with modern veteran precision. This one hits a bit too hard on the emotions, you have been warned.
By the time the seven-minute epic The Mariner brings the album to a close, you realize just how much ground they’ve covered in such a short runtime. The production keeps things feeling alive and energetic rather than over-polished, making it easy to picture how these songs will hit in a packed venue.
It takes a special kind of band to make you want to jump around a room while simultaneously making you reflect on how you treat your neighbours. Within is an energetic, deeply empathetic record that proves Protest The Hero are still holding some serious aces when it comes to song writing. 8/10
Mourir – Nous, Le Venin (Pelagic Records) [Mark Young]
And here we go, its time for the monthly ‘I missed these from the review schedule’ catch up, with part one dealing with Mourir, and their super intense black metal release Nous, Le Venin (roughly translated to We The Venom from the French) and its one of only a small number of black metal releases that strive to deliver the attitude and cold aggression that the genre used to serve up on a regular basis.
The album itself delights in offering up clinical speed with guitars that cascade in and out, and vocal patterns that range from the guttural to the plainly unhinged. It’s the kind of stuff that is almost impossible to put a tag on (for those that love a good tag) and as a result I think that its best that you approach this knowing that you have to subject yourself to it as a whole listening experience. You cannot dip in with one song and immediately get that flavour; you need the whole thing to understand what it is you are supposed to be digesting.
Feu d’un Regard is the unbalanced opening point, its frenzied guitar salvos suddenly pulling back into a controlled level of fury. It’s not what I expected at all and then continues to subvert at every step. Don’t be fooled into thinking that this is without any melodic touches to it, they are in there, you just need to dig deep for them.
Ennui Ennemi brings what you might call classic BM into play. By that I mean the propulsive drumming and rhythm patterns associated but again they subtly change the game within. Yes, it’s fast, but not at the expense of musical ideas. At times they knock on the door of country and western tropes. Just because they can. This approach serves them so well, because there is an expectation that they will pull the rug from underneath you and delight in doing so.
In the centre of the album are two diamonds – Mon Rêve Animal and Je Est Absent, both hitting 7 minutes plus of barely controlled mayhem that drag the album along, changing speed and intent as they chart a unique path from traditional BM into melancholia and back again, its supreme stuff. And of course, the end is also the title track in which they invite you onto a 10 minute terror train. All is discord, stuffed with those gloriously unhinged vocals from Oliver Lolmède and some serious trem picking.
Its just like going back in time when the genre was fresh and exciting. Its certainly a climatic end, one that picks up the pace and then just gallops off, truly excellent stuff. Like most things worth doing, putting the effort in and absorbing this in one go is the right (only?) way to listen to it. Don’t dip in and dip out, commit yourself to it and you will be rewarded. 8/10
Rising Alma – Your Own Story (Self Released) [Matt Bladen]
Melodic heavy rock now from multinational trio Rising Alma. They are Maximo on guitar, Bastie on bass and Alise on vocals and Your Own Story is their second release after their 2025 debut album.
Your Own Story has a thematic link running through it but the songs all stand together in their own right, the vocals of Alise are a highlight, she’s got a vocal that comes from the 2000’s American radio metal sound of Evanescence et al.
While the music is also from that influence however I did find the instrumental things a little one dimensional, hindered by the production which is supposed to be “natural and authentic sound” but with the electronic drums (I think anyway) feels very muddy and a very bass heavy and really just not that interesting.
Your Own Story is a great way to introduce yourself to Rising Alma if you’ve never heard them before, but I don’t need another listen. 5/10
