ComfortComes

Review: Enter Shikari – Quelle Surprise

In the ever bloated alt. Music scene, a fresh approach is rarer than rocking horse droppings. Not for St. Albans’ Enter Shikari, they are using the downtime between their second and third album to release a feisty, raucous and mood mixing stand alone single, ‘Quelle Surprise (Clean)’. Its impact is that of The Deftones, The Prodigy and Hadouken all being bundled into a two man toboggan and a firecracker thrown in just after the off. Stomping drum beats gives profile to the track and underlines the provocative sloganeering:

“If you stand for nothing, you will fall for anything.”

The ‘Profane’, version of this track is the one that should be played the most, the profanity is in tone with the political bemusement on show. ‘Hectic f. Matt P – Live at Hatfield’, features a stirring, tingling lullaby intro’ that then morphs into a grizzly post rock and metal onslaught, before levelling out into a shouty new wave/gruelling rock belter. With the coup de grace being a bristling low key synth accompanied, crowd inclusive chorus.

‘Destabilise – Creatures of Love Remix’, provides a fresh bracing touch, as an eerie Underworld moonlighting with Mogwai approach opens up for the slow gliding, soulful vocals of Rou Reynolds. It gets you bracing yourself for the onslaught. There’s more creepy climbing, chiming and clanging, yet the teasers never let loose. Instead a chilling ambient leaning track provides some neat variety. Mouths will be watering in anticipation of the third album.

Enter Shikari – No Sleep Tonight

Hertfordshire’s favourite sky-scraping alternative rocking haranguers, Enter Shikari plucks another throttling percussion heavy led, moody incendiary of release, emboldening the impact of breathtaking their 2nd album, ‘Common Dreads’. The mood tossing single ‘No Sleep Tonight’, harnesses adroitly the controlled desperation of the vocal plug of Rou Reynolds. They manipulate the overhanging threat of insomnia, adopting it as a weapon to fire home the growing potency of their fertile sound.

Digital toeing and vocal grizzle creates a chilling build up to an orbiting release, a bit like a wolf’s howl on appearing out of the woods into an open desert. Enter Shikari continues to breath freshness into the ranging rock sector in a way that questions the doomsayers. Who sit in their smokey holes, telling anyone and everyone who’ll listen or read that this aspect of music has been getting progressively staler for the last few years. Most importantly, you get the impression that these feral flight rockers are just skimming the surface at the moment!