Review by Saxy S for Loathe - I Let It in and It Took Everything (2020)

I figured that I would rewrite this review considering the first review I did of this album was after I listened to the record while on painkillers and it turned out very poor. So Loathe, an English based trancecore(?) band whose defining feature is their incorporation of Deftones influenced shoegaze/alternative metal sounds.

And on their newest album, I Let It in and It Took Everything, the band seems to be trying to split the difference between abrasive guitar riffage that isn’t that dissimilar to what Daughters did on their last album, and the aforementioned Deftones sound. And they have the sound down to a tea, to the point where lead vocalist, Kadeem France, even has Chino’s unique vocal articulation. And I do respect what this band is able to do with these influences and try to turn them into something new and exciting.

However what I said before still stands and that is that this record is all over the place in its framing and mood. At one moment, it frenzied and hectic and at others, calm and collected. “Aggressive Evolution” has these ideas spliced together into one song, let alone between the different tracks! Songs such as “Screaming” and “New Face in the Dark” balance the two moods a little bit better.

The album is still inconsistent from a production standpoint as well. The bass drum on “Gored” is so poorly mixed I can barely hear anything else. The harsh vocals are usually tossed on with an absurd amount of feedback making them sound muddy. The guitars fall victim to this as well, although less frequently. In my original review, I was less interested in these mathcore sounding tunes (and I still don’t care for them that much now), but can hear how these two very different ideas work well together at points. Honestly, I would have liked this album better if the band fully embraced the Daughters influence or the Deftones influence, not both at the same time. It isn’t as bad as I originally thought, but I still don’t know if I’ll come back to this very often.