A System’s Meltdown.
It has now been a month since Enter Shikari surprise-dropped their latest studio album ,Lose Your Self, on April 10th, giving us ample time to form an opinion on the newest entry in their oeuvre, and let me tell you, I am not impressed.
Lose Your Self was a rough listen, prompting me to go as far as thinking about the future of the band, if this is all that’s left we will hear from boys from St. Albans, whether or not we can expect a return to their heavier roots and how they could possibly reignite this fire, that has propelled them up the charts in the past.
Their Future History.
Artistically speaking, their discography displays two homogenous gradients, blending into each other in the mid to late 2010’s. For the first half of their existence their sound fits neatly in the post-hardcore genre, characterized by their iconic synths and drum&bass beat patterns, until they transitioned into something new, something distinctly more poprock than post-hardcore over the last nine years.
In that sense, Enter Shikari has only ever had one drastic change in their direction across the 19 years of their existence, which came with their 2017 album The Spark, when the band’s storytelling forever changed away from the almost exclusively gritty or rallying lyrics of previous songs and towards more emotional storytelling for more personal stories.
Whereas in their fabled debut album Take To The Skies, diminishingly little was discernable beside obscure auto-biographical inside jokes and vague threats towards neoliberalism, as is probably owed to juvenile edginess and crypticity, subsequent albums have cemented their signature style of storytelling, emphasizing poetic descriptions of injustice and rallying cries to change the systems we are governed by.
This change is exemplified by their 2017 studio album The Spark, where Rou Reynolds, the band’s lead vocalist and songwriter takes us on a plunge into his inner life, producing an array of deeply emotional songs such as Airfield or An Ode to Lost Jigsaw Pieces, fundamentally altering the tone of the album compared to previous entries in their discography which seemed almost emotionally atrophied at times regarding more tender sentiments than rage against class-based injustice and tragic lament for the systems we uphold and try to dismantle at the same time.
Apart from this new soft approach to songwriting, The Spark also marked a turning point for their musical expressions of said lyrics, fusing tried and true synths with major scale melodies, which, excluding 2009’s Common Dreads, were usually reserved for the concluding tune of an album, while simultaneously shelving the Drum and Bass patterns that characterized the first half of their work.
Leap into a New Direction.
Following the success of The Spark, the group waded continuously into the direction of a cleaner, emotionally deeper sonical profile, while employing more unconventional sounds to bring a new style of Enter Shikari to life.
While The Spark changed their direction, its musical signature hardly resurfaces in subsequent works, this is where Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible comes in, this bombastic melodramatic work fundamentally influenced their sound for at least the next two albums – and among them, their most mediocre one so far.
This new foundational album blends cynical and ironically defeatist lyrics with synthesizer drum patterns and orchestral elements, it is as opulent as it is melancholic, practically the polar opposite of 2014’s A Flash Flood of Colour, which brims with overt edginess and a rallying conclusion instead of positive nihilism. Most importantly, it signifies a change of heart in Rou Reynolds, shifting away from the anti-establishment hymns of their earlier years and more towards packaging experiences and opinions in abstract anecdotes, as seen for instance in Modern Living.
The Pressure’s On.
Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible noticeably bled into their next album, A Kiss for the Whole World, which appeared to have cemented their new formula of edgy pop-rock with some synths and odd samples on the side, telling stories of goldfish and jailbreaks, more akin to puzzles for the listener to pry apart and find their own meaning in, than the straight-forward inspiring chants that could be found on Common Dreads for example. This artistic reorientation was a challenge and they mastered it, any pressure felt could be lifted off their shoulders, or could it?
I really enjoyed listening to this album, if this is what Enter Shikari has become then I will be here for it, if this is the conclusion of Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible, then I will be here for it, if this is the alternative to ten more years of touring with Sorry You’re Not a Winner, I will be here for it, because as great as their debut album Take to the Skies is, I have heard it a thousand times and A Kiss for the Whole World made me curious as to what Rou could be cooking up next. However, they could not maintain the creative momentum, and thus, their new album Lose Your Self is anything but alike to its predecessors, in storytelling, atmosphere and sound.
Anything Can Happen in the Next Studio Album.
Artistically, Lose Your Self inscribes itself firmly in the wake of Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible, but it loses the tension that was brought back by A Kiss for the Whole World, and held together the songs that bore cornier lyrics like goldfĭsh ~ or even gave pieces like Dead Wood, a lucid almost manic quality in their dramaticism. This tension came about through memorable and repetitive high-cadence drum patterns, as illustrated to a tee on Bloodshot (Coda), and remains to me one of the defining aspects of this album.
Where Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible presents itself using distorted orchestral soundscapes, creating tension via auditory saturation, The Mindsweep uses shrill synths create tension amid scenes of angst and ambiguity, and A Kiss for the Whole World hinges on its drum cadence tightly packed soundscape to condense the sonical atmosphere and emphasize the musical aspect of the lyrics, leaving the meaning to be deciphered later on.
Short-sighted changes.
And in my opinion, this is a great formula, one that was largely left behind by their latest entry, exposing a gaping flaw of the rehash: Creating more of the same through a different lens can work, but only if you don’t touch the basic formula. It has worked for them over the first half of their discography and they were off to a great start with their new formula in A Kiss for the Whole World, which was a successful rehash of Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible, but now now Lose Your Self lost the tempo that made its predecessor work and omitted the sonical saturation that made Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible, factually creating a void of tension that doesn’t do anything to embellish or pressurize the at times corny lyrics.
Under the Microscope.
From my perspective, the album lacks saturation, pressure, and tempo, resulting in an absence of tension, which as stated earlier is what characterizes Enter Shikari albums for me. The title track LOSE YOUR SELF immediately falls prey to this problem, as its hook is catchy but not supported enough to feel important or unironic enough to be sung along.
Out of all the songs on this album, I have saved three, these are i can’t keep my hands clean, it’s OK and The Flick Of A Switch I. In my experience, they create soundscapes that have been proven to work, with the same heavy drum synths used to create rolling beat patterns in Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible, employed to build the foundation of The Flick Of A Switch I. it’s OK impresses with a reflective approach of spoken word poetry to the main behaviors rewarded by capitalism and i can’t keep my hands clean is just noisy and fun.
These songs have impressed me, but I fail to resonate with the rest of the album and the work as a whole. It feels like the central theme is not fleshed out enough and difficult to mentalise, where Common Dreads alluded heavily to warfare and rallying cries, The Spark emphasized optimistic sci-fi elements as well as a little 80’s flair, Lose Your Self appears unable to attach any meaningful associations to itself, the most I can associate this album with is an underdeveloped esoteric sci-fi aesthetic, as evidenced by the cover and title song, perhaps some feelings of desperation and being lost, but to me it’s like a moodboard with two rough sketches, it feels unfinished. The dagger in my heart remains the intro to LOSE YOUR SELF with their iconic synths as they were used in the intros to Common Dreads, A Flash Flood of Colour and The Mindsweep. Why doesn’t it sound like a good album, when it introduces itself as one?
Adieu.
To conclude, I want to emphasize that this album is still worth a listen for any fan of their work, but for me as well as many other critics, it appears to have veered off course by wide margin. It does not adhere to the new formula established by Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible following the vibe shift perpetuated by The Spark, its lyrical content is lackluster if not corny and the musical structure of the songs feels at times even random.
In spite of my criticisms, I am still an Enter Shikari fan, and I love all their other albums (except for Tribalism, you can hunt me with We Can Breathe in Space), and as such I will continue listening to Lose Your Self, which has disappointed me but will always be worth a listen, simply because even with this mediocre record, they still made good music. And rest assured, even if this one isn’t to your taste, they will make new music, and still we will be here, standing like statues.
Domenic Schwander
Sources:
Enter Shikari on Spotify
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