Enter Shikari - Sorry, You're Not A Winner [single]

November 9, 2006, 01:26 PM

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To many, Enter Shikari’s appeal is simple and mind-numbingly straightforward. Blending the much loved elements of screamo and a host of electronic noises which wouldn’t go out of place in Ibiza; they create a hybrid sound which is making them one of the hottest properties in the UK rock scene right now. People flock to the gigs and all to get a taste of this, truly ‘the next big thing’.

But let’s not get carried away in the hype, as enough people already have done. In all fairness to the band, they’ve done extremely well to build such an appeal without a record deal and this debut single is released via their own Ambush Reality label. The band have made full use of the free enterprise of advertising through the popular MySpace website and the majority of serious users of the site will tell you how Enter Shikari are the most original band ever.

Sadly, originality cannot be created it just comes, and this single sounds painstakingly like a band have sat down and devised a way to sound original, over perhaps working on a sound that’s already known and drawing their own sound from it. In short, it seems they’ve taken an easy way out, a quick results, sure fire way at popularity.

The single itself scrapes through in fairness, it’s not all doom and gloom, some parts of the songs are really endearing to serious music lovers and it does eventually come together into something listenable. Be prepared to have to listen to it at least a dozen times though before you reach this state. The single then, ‘Sorry, You’re Not A Winner’ does come in positively, without the backing of the beats then it would pass for a regular post-hardcore intro, complete with tasteful pinched harmonics. Due to the combination of the two genres, for whoever’s wisdom, the guitars don’t hit as hard as they normally would, this is certainly more dance friendly.

Chant friendly lyrics in the chorus will certainly provide the appeal of this song live, complete with almost obligatory quite parts and gradually increasing drums to bring everything back in, this is dance-core by the book: Enter Shikari style. In this vein ‘OK! Time For Plan B’ kicks in with more programmed beats, and an easy to dance to chorus. There’s little else to say of this song than the previous, everything represents a simple formula that so many are mistaking for originality.

As an added extra, Enter Shikari throws in a badly-mixed demo version of the ‘The Feast’, a song that is almost beyond comprehension in describing rationally. Sounding originally like a bad carnival tune, it quickly descends in further obscurity with heavy muted guitaring and growled vocals, also throw in the sharp higher guitar parts and this has everything a song in this genre should, but nothing more.

For all the endeavours of originality and hours of adding people and spreading the word on MySpace, Enter Shikari have developed a loyal following who would happily praise this single into the ground. Sadly, the appeal doesn’t stretch much beyond the MySpace generation. At times it sounds as though they are trying too hard to be different, an image which collapses when it emerges that they are creating music similar to everyone else right now, just adding a few extra bits. Enter Shikari aren’t quite the huge prospect you may have heard about online, they’re just a simple rock band adding trance to create the illusion of originality. It’s like taking a painting and adding a different colour somewhere and claiming it to be an original work, it looks different but is essentially the same, Enter Shikari should try harder, though judging by their 40,000+ strong friends list on MySpace, they don’t need to.

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