Tuesday 17 January 2012

Enter Shikari - 'A Flash Flood Of Colour' 8/10


If you're anything like me, you can never take politically themed music particularly seriously. Sure it was great in the 60s when Dylan penned songwriting masterpieces about civil rights and the basic freedom of citizens. Yes Rage Against The Machine were the voice of young, rebellious America, beaten down by totalitarian cops. However these days it seems all we have to complain (and occasionally riot) about is increases in tuition fees and those darned Tories. At a time when The King Blues are as political as music gets, a band like Enter Shikari are just what the modern protester needs. You can practically hear their group vocals being chanted from Zucotti Park.

'A Flash Flood Of Colour' is Enter Shikari's third album and takes the basic thematic ideas from 2009’s ‘Common Dreads’ – unity within humanity, solidarity with those less fortunate than us and a basic refusal to accept the 21st century’s mindset of greed and wealth – and expands them in a record which questions everything from climate change and nuclear warfare and holds our nation’s leaders to account. Heavy stuff. When Rou Reynolds isn’t screaming lines like “This is gonna change everything” or “We’ll take you down, stand your ground” he’s half rapping in Mike Skinner fashion. Enter Shikari’s trademark group vocals, heavy riffs, hardcore drums and dubstep influenced breakdowns are all present, correct and angrier than ever.

It seems this is the “no messing around” album. Their debut record ‘Take To The Skies’ was ringing with Rou’s furious screaming and trance music interludes while ‘Common Grounds’ included spoken word rhetoric and the occasional euphoric synth line. ‘A Flash Flood Of Colour’ has no funny voices, no wall to wall synthesizers and certainly no comically timed clap alongs their rise to fame single ‘Sorry You’re Not A Winner’ included. In fact the only moment even closely resembling these previous lapses appears on lead single ‘Gandhi Mate, Gandhi’. When Rou threatens the world’s leaders ‘When tomorrow comes / we’re gonna stamp on your head!’ his band seemingly down instruments and can be heard mock calming the over excitable vocalist – “Woah, calm down mate… Gandhi, remember Gandhi”.

Musically the band have discovered their ability to write an excellent chorus. As the album goes on they dig deeper into their more hardcore punk tendencies. ‘Warm Smiles Do Not Make You Welcome Here’ is about as close to a radio friendly track the band are ever likely to release – low on Rou’s trademark growl and with only a final few seconds of violent guitar riffery. ‘Pack Of Thieves’ has a brilliant drive to it. There’s a pace and formation about it we haven’t heard from the band at since ‘Take To The Skies’ and their unmistakable group vocals are brilliantly formed and likely to be screamed out in sweaty mosh pits across the world.

So musically the album stands up. However this album is driven by the themes Rou is so angry about. Do these hold up? It’s interesting to read the lyric sheets on this record, there are a lot of one line chants and phrases that sound good but don’t really have much system changing advice. As if in answer to this the band have added a link to a website promoting activism like the Occupy Wall Street protests to the album artwork. In the end it’s all very well and good having four lads from St. Albans shouting catchy lines about a new world order but Dylan this ain’t. Good job the music is as solid as it is, making this the band’s most exciting and genre defying release yet.