Enter Shikari - Juggernauts [Single]

Atlantic

June 4, 2009, 11:21 AM

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The idea of post- hardcore and trance styles of music being fused together, sounds very much like a recipe for disaster. Two polar opposites on the music genre scale, most bands wouldn’t dream of infusing the two. Enter Shikari however are not your average band. Their blend of post-hardcore and trance may be obscure, but often the strangest of ideas can lead to the greatest of discoveries.

Now Enter Shikari have given themselves an steep, uphill task. Their debut album, 2007’s “Take To The Skies”, reached number 4 in the Official UK Album Chart and was later certified Gold. Not only is that successful by any bands standards, but for a debut album, this is a monumental achievement. Also the mere fact that Enter Shikari gained wide spread commercial success, being the post-hardcore, “experimental” band that they are, is again another accomplishment in itself.

So “Common Dreads” then, has a lot to look up to, as do Enter Shikari themselves. The expectations for their second album is high and judging by “Juggernauts”, Enter Shikari will not disappoint. “Juggernauts” begins as it mean to go on, with guitar thrashing and drum bellowing, emerging through a sea of trance, whilst Rou Reynolds voice cuts through it like a sharp blade cuts through grass. Its aggressive, its loud, its brash and that’s just the music. Lyrically, this song is just like the music behind it, in every way. “Juggernauts” is a song that not only mirrors our society but tells us everything that is wrong with it and in particular our ever competent government.

It is a song that is politically and socially relevant. To a nation that has been gripped with fear and despondency, lyrics such as “And I know that we still got time but I do not think we’re invincible” and “And I’m not saying we could do better but given the chance we’d try”, make more sense than ever. An obvious jibe at the current state of affairs affecting the nation, these lyrics are clearly aimed at our bleary eyed government, who have run the country into despair and panic. Even the slower parts of the song, where Rou Reynolds voices his concerns in almost Mike Skinner’esque vocals, are compelling and dynamic. It is indeed in this style of singing, at the end of the track, that Reynolds delivers probably the truest and most relevant lyric of all, “The idea of community will be something displayed in a museum”. Another mirror image of broken Britain and another stab (excuse the pun) at the chaos and crime that our streets have been consumed with.


Its not only Reynolds vocals that are on top form in this song though. Rory Clewlow must get some credit for his beautifully, harmonious vocal work in some sections of the track. Clewlow’s soft and melodic vocals provide a direct contrast to the rasps and growls of Reynolds and this works well with the softer, more slower sections of the song he has been given, as Reynolds vocals would clearly have been too overbearing for these particular portions of the track.

“Juggernauts” is a pertinent, appropriate and fitting song, for the current state of affairs that we live in. The track really does show how insightful and talented these boys are, to produce a song with so much depth and meaning. Lyrically it is beautiful, musically it is as brutal as it is melodic and both of these elements combine to make this song an incredible display of technical brilliance. “Juggernauts” also displays how to successfully fuse together different music genres, in this case techno, post-hardcore and progressive rock, and mold it into pure experimental genius. June 15th then defiantly looks set to be a date to mark on the calendar because if “Common Dreads” is as half as good as “Juggernauts”, then Enter Shikari should surely have another gold album on their hands.

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