by Erin Jane
Hard to describe, and even harder to fall asleep to, is Enter Shikari’s Debut album Take to the Skies, released March 19th, 2007 on their own label ‘Ambush Reality’.
What I’m going to call Emo/Screamo/Jap-pop/Punk/Trance/Prog Rock, with an experimental attitude- Take to the Skies is a mixture of sounds that feels like a mild epileptic fit, but in a good way…
In early 2003 four standard geezers from St. Albans City, as the band puts it, formed a band by fusing many different genres and styles together to form their own sound. They’re probably too young to understand the 80′s techno sound they’ve perfected in songs like first single “Mothership” and “Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour”…but they do so with little fault.
Enter Shikari are seeking to rewrite expectations of what a band should sound like. Rou has all the appeal of a young Robert Smith but I feel Chris (the screamer) could have been picked out of any scremo band. It’s easy to hear the stolen riffs from Killswitch Engage and the harmony of Linkin Park, and heavy influence of old punk greats Rancid and Dropkick Murphys, but the talent lies in the clever way everything is mismatched but still seems to mesh quite well, especially in “Sorry You’re not a Winner” where I was left thinking ‘Now, how the hell did they change to that time sequence so smoothly!?’.
It’s also refreshing to see the subject matter is something far removed from girls and broken hearts- it’s about Aliens. You gotta hand it to these lads, they toured solid for 3 years with no press, no agents, no management, no help whatsoever, and they never gave up.
Overall, i loved it, and they’ve given me a reason to clear my current ipod playlist, but as hardcore as Enter Shikari are trying to be, I’ll be honest and say if you didn’t like Panic At The Disco! then chances are, you won’t like Take to the Skies.
This is theme music for any Jap punk rave where you expect cute little asian girls in bright coloured skirts to be hooking up with young vegan tattooed emos.
Check out the usual www.entershikari.com and www.myspace.com/entershikari , also, search for them in Youtube , ’cause these 4 boys might just be the next big thing in emo.