Stream Loathe's new ambient album 'The Things They Believe'

February 8, 2021

Loathe took the world of heavy music by storm last year with their metalcore-meets-Deftones LP I Let It in and It Took Everything, and over the weekend they released a new instrumental ambient LP, The Things They Believe (via SharpTone Records). Here’s what guitarist Erik Bickerstaffe, bassist Feisal El-Khazragi, and vocalist Kadeem France told Kerrang! about it:

Feisal: “We’ve always been into ambient music. When we hit lockdown, and there was that pressure to do something different, we weren’t really fans of what other bands were doing in terms of livestreams and all that. I guess what fans would’ve expected would be a ‘regular album’. We thought it would be cool to do something more unexpected, while also tapping into that element of ambient sound that’s already baked into the band.”

Erik: “The idea has been around for ages. It’s kind of a mix-and-match of ideas amassed over a long period of time. Some elements were taken from sessions for I Let It In… Some ideas originated ages ago.”

[…] Kadeem: “This album is so different to anything we’ve done before and I knew that the [ambient, instrumental] side of things was more the forte of Erik and Feisal, so I was happy to take a back seat and just let them do their thing. I knew and trusted in their abilities. As a band, we’re all on the same level when it comes to making our music. I definitely had some input, though. The track title The Year When Everything And Nothing Happened came from me.”

They also spoke about the album’s collaboration with saxophonist John Waugh, who’s best known for his work with The 1975:

Feisal: “The 1975 are basically my favourite band of all time. Our friend Ronnie was doing sound on the Stray From The Path tour we played over a year ago now – December 2019 – and he’d told us that he knew John. I told Erik and he told me to go and try to get John on this record, though we didn’t think it would really happen. The next time I spoke to Erik about it was when I came up from Cardiff and had this email chain with John saying he would do it. He just sent back one part for three different tunes. We didn’t even have to ask him to change anything. I cannot stress enough how phenomenal he is.”

Feisel also added how the album was partially inspired by the way Radiohead has their rock albums, and then Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood do film scores on the side. “We would love to be able to do that one day, too,” he said. Read the full interview here and stream the album via its YouTube playlist below.

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