ENTER SHIKARI – A FLASH FLOOD OF COLOUR

The music of British foursome Enter Shikari can be best described as a combination of various hardcore styles. The group have long embraced electronics more closely associated with trance and drum’n’bass to set themselves apart from many of their post-hardcore contemporaries. Together with the unabashedly British ranting and raving of frontman Rou Reynolds, the band are an exciting prospect for both adrenaline junkies and connoisseurs. A Flash Flood of Colour, their third studio offering, is an album packed with shout-along choruses and nifty riffs of both the metal and electronic persuasion. Meltdown is as catchy as it is pure brutal ecstasy, while Sssnakepit’s dub synths and quasi-rapping sound like they’re straight from London’s underground scene. The shouty politics of Gandhi Mate, Gandhi are dangerously rousing, yet still somehow tongue-in-cheek. The lyrical content of many hardcore outfits swings wildly between preachy and piss-taking, but Enter Shikari have managed to find a decent balance between Rage-Against-The-Machine seriousness and Slipknot-style anarchism. It may not win them any new fans, and the several softer tunes pale in comparison to the rest of them, but A Flash Flood of Colour is a strong, solid amalgamation of all things turned up to 11.

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