In Enter Shikari's short time on this planet since forming in St. Albans, Hertfordshire in 2003, the band has had some impressive achievements.
Should you need reminding (not that we'd ever get sick of telling you), by November 2006 - while still yet to release their debut single - they became only the second unsigned band ever to sell out London’s legendary Astoria venue (and the last, as it turned out, as the place is to be bulldozed to make way for yet more glass and brushed steel shrines to rampant consumerism and pointlessly expensive accommodation) and their heroic / reckless (delete where applicable) approach to touring quickly chalked up remarkable audience numbers and record sales in an age when we’re told people don’t pay for such things anymore. A top five debut album (‘Take To The Skies’, it subsequently went Gold, selling 110,000+ copies in the UK alone), Kerrang and NME Awards, and sold out Brixton Academy shows soon followed.
But that’s ancient history, we're far more concerned with the future…
June 1st bestows upon the universe the first single release from Enter Shikari’s highly-anticipated second album ‘Common Dreads’. Produced by writer/re-mixer/producer Andy Gray (who's bafflingly eclectic mix of credits includes Korn, U2, Gary Numan, Tori Amos and writing the theme to televisual atrocity Big Brother) at Arreton Manor on the Isle Of White.
‘Juggernauts’ takes the band’s hardcore and metallic roots and injects them with a 1000x amplified take on the melodic rock and atmospheric pop that was hinted at on the debut album, then it splashes a punishing hyperactive synth sequence all over it and sets it loose to cause trouble in the park. All the other songs on the radio will be afraid of ‘Juggernauts’... it'll take their lunch money and send them back to the Brits school with their haircuts between their legs.
This is the sound of Enter Shikari matured, focused and at the peak of their powers, and it heralds an album that features a sprawling collection of genre-abusing/fusing/decimating tracks from a band brave enough to stand on their own and away from the pack.
But we'll get to that in the next thrilling installment...
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