Enter Shikari-A Flash Flood of Colour
Enter Shikari have always been about breaking new boundaries and treading new ground. Appearing with vitality, verve and a genuine uniqueness back in 2007 with their much-loved debut "Take To The Skies", the band have been both prolific and important since, growing rightfully more successful with every release. "A Flash Flood of Colour", their third album, is quite simply a revelation that feels not only conscious and significant in a time of uncertainty and threat but also exciting, vibrant and undeniably awesome.
This record includes everything Shikari have tried their hands at before but sharpened, readied and pushed all the way to one hundred, bearing its teeth and roaring without mercy while simultaneously giving real hope and optimism in a world full of negativity.
The album is brilliant from start to finish and crucially gets better with every listen, dual-attack opener 'System...' '...Meltdown' builds with a nerve-shredding suspense and grandiosity before exploding like a neon bomb with millions of brightly coloured sparks and the journey that follows is equally eclectic.
'Search Party' and 'Pack of Thieves' are massive anthems, the former merging huge gang-vocals with a barely contained frustration while the latter reminds one of the band's early days with its euphoric electronics and bouncing riffs, both making you feel you can take on the world. Elsewhere there's pure brutality and rage, 'Hello Tyrannosaurus, Meet Tyrannicide' sways and shakes the ground like the prehistoric beast that it shares its title with, 'Gandhi Mate, Gandhi' falls into uncontrolled anger that makes you feel you're right there with the band as they consider the world's issues and the bone-shaking screams of frontman Rou Reynolds on 'Arguing With Thermometers' genuinely make you believe that these guys want to make a difference. At times however shades of real beauty open up from within the guts of the album as demonstrated by the breathtaking 'Stalemate' and the closing heartfelt call-to-arms 'Constellations', both showing an amazing flux of songwriting from the band in the sense that their powerful restraint only makes their messages all the stronger. There are moments on all of these songs and the few not mentioned that make you want to punch the air with sheer glee as you hear a band perfecting what has always been a killer sound and then some.
This is modern music at its most exciting, a record that follows through on all promises, get involved because Enter Shikari have made an album that feels like, at this point in time and in this day and age, it needs to be with us.