Enter Shikari: “Kings of Trancecore”

Enter Shikari has hit England’s music scene with hard driven breakdowns, dance worthy trance rhythms, and a sound all to their own. With two number one singles on the UK Rock Chart it isn’t so surprising that these guys have been known to deliver one of the best live rock shows – having been one of the only two unsigned bands to sell out the London Astoria. With Enter Shikari having such an impact on the UK, you better keep your eyes peeled on the band expanding overseas into North America.

In the beginning, three guys from primary school came together with one dream and one goal. They consisted of Rou Reynolds who held down the vocals/electronics, Rob Rolfe who maintains a solid beat with the drums, and Chris Batten with a heart pounding bass noise. The formation of the band took a couple of years. In this time, decisions circulated the group as to who was going to fit into the band as a guitarist. In 2003, the group found their match guitarist formally known as Rory Clewlow. At this time the bands dreams and goals came true, the result… Enter Shikari!

The band’s success was essentially brought on by themselves as they took a different approach to generate a fan base. While some bands were doing just about everything in the books to get known by plotting schemes of self advertising to garner more attention, Enter Shikari was in the midst of buying their first van, and hitting the road in search of more shows to play, more friends, and a lot more good times along the way.

All throughout playing countless shows and touring aimlessly around the country, the group developed what would come to be their own unique “Enter Shikari sound”. The sounds of hardcore clashing with trance, riots meeting raves, sing along or mosh the fuck out.

The more shows the guys played the more they got their unique sound out to the underground metal/hardcore scene of Britain. There seemed to be more and more people coming out to the shows as well. By the end of 2005 and the starting of 2006 Enter Shikari found themselves in an adequate position of being one of the most respected groups in the “Britain scene”. These boys had it all; their fantasies into dreams, and now their dreams have turned into bigger things. Satisfaction was on the rise and there was no way of stopping there.

In 2006 they played in front of their largest crowd yet, literally tearing up the Gibson / Myspace stage at the Download Festival. From then they only grew stronger, having appearances at the Leeds Festival, a sold out headlining tour across the UK, and the support slot at My Chemical Romance’s ‘Black Parade’. On their sold out tour across the UK, one date included was in London at the Mean Fiddler which sold out well in advance so the show was moved to a venue with a larger capacity of 2000 at London’s Astoria which also sold out before the show.

In August 2006 the band released the single “Mothership” and by October of 2006 Enter Shikari had released their first debut album with live favorites like “Sorry Your Not a Winner” and “Ok, Time for plan B”. This had earned them lots of radio play, articles in newspapers and hours of screen time on music channels.

Soon after the band had established a concrete fan base, record labels ranging from major to indie had come forth offering the guys all different kinds of deals and contracts. It all sounded good, but the record companies offered them everything except for one thing… freedom. The band wanted to go their own direction, they had already come this far on their own and no way in hell were they ready to be babysat. Enter Shikari had reached a fork in the road and decided to go it alone down the road less traveled. They had reached a deal with UK independent distributor ‘Vital’ and had hired Integral for their sales and marketing reasons. In the mean time, Enter Shikari had released their music on their own label Ambush Reality Records putting them in the unique position of owning the copyright to their recordings and answering to no one but themselves.

The starting of 2007 seemed to be coming around perfectly for the band. They kicked it off by recording a session for Zane Lowe and picking up a trip to Tokyo with a handful of UK dates to go along with it. In February the guys found themselves touring with Billy Talent and Alexisonfire for the Arena tour in Germany. When they returned to the UK for the remainder of the tour dates, they found out that almost half of the tour was already sold out and more dates were being added. That feeling of satisfaction turned into a feeling of bliss as the band spread their sound everywhere.

In March of 2007 the second single was released “Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour….” The release of the track earned them some radio play with Jo Whiley. Radio play could not have come at a better time because on March 19th Enter Shikari released their debut album Take to the Skies. The album reached #4 on the official UK album chart.

In October/November of 2007 they played an eleven date headline tour including their biggest ever headline gig in the 4,921 capacity Carling Academy Brixton. The band released a compilation album The Zone on November 12. During the month of November it was reported that a laptop belonging to the band was stolen backstage which contained all new material for a new album.

Some new and upcoming news from the band is that they are currently on a semi-world tour as they will be visit Europe, North America and Asia. They made an instrumental song called “Enter Shikari Vs. Blue Dragon” for the XBOX 360 game “Blue Dragon”. Moreover, “Ok, Time for Plan B” will be a track on the game Madden 08’ and “Sorry Your Not a Winner” will be a track on the NHL 08 game.

Check into PureGrainAudio soon for an album review on Take to the Skies and look out for Enter Shikari coming to a city near you!