Enter Shikari’s internet-boosted debut record Take To The Skies entered the UK album chart at No. 4 in March of this year, making them one of the more surprising pop success stories of recent times.
Then again, perhaps events like this are no longer surprising; there have, after all, been numerous groups whose success has been initially owed to the web. But in this case, the band themselves were as shocked as anyone by the high chart entry.
“Surprised would be one word for it,” recalls Chris Batten (bass/vocals), with a wry smile. “Absolutely stunned would probably be a better phrase. You don’t hear music like us in the Top 10, do you?”
Indeed you don’t, although opinion is split over whether this is a good or bad thing. Take To The Skies is an unrelenting barrage of thrash-metal riffing, guttural screaming and brash electronic pop, which infuriated as many listeners as it thrilled. Bratten himself admits that Enter Shikari are something of a “marmite band”.
There are a number of reasons for this polarisation of opinion. The group’s decision to deliver a debut record without gaps between tracks denied some listeners the breathing space required to survive such a sonic hailstorm. Also, Enter Shikari’s electronic influences often veer away from leftfield (the norm for hard rock bands) towards the cheesier, poppier end of the scale.
“I listen to a complete range of dance music,” explains Roughton Reynolds, the band’s lead vocalist and electronics expert. “I like the pop-dance music in the charts: massive, stupid dance music, like Scatman! But then, I also like stuff that is a bit more abstract – like drum ‘n’ bass and electronica.”
Reynolds admits that this willingness to embrace unhip electronic influences is a big minus, in some people’s eyes.
“You get these purist people, that are only into metal,” he explains. “They are like: ‘What are you doing, ruining the genre?’ Bands a bit older than us would shy away from that sort of dance music, because it was in the mainstream when they were our age. In the same way, we wouldn’t like to start putting anything that’s currently in the mainstream charts into our music.”
As well as being criticised for tainting heavy rock with an unwelcome pop-dance influence, Enter Shikari have also been burdened with a most-unwelcome “emo” tag. But is it a fair cop? Or does this merely serve to highlight the increasingly meaningless nature of the term? Reynolds plumps for the latter.
“We don’t sound anything like proper emo from the ‘90s, like Dashboard Confessional,” he explains. “Luckily, we don’t get that label often now. People are coming to terms with the fact that it has become a complete cliché, and no-one knows what it means anymore.”
Enter Shikari will not attain many critical cool points, and it's unlikely that they will ever fit in with their mainstream contemporaries. But do they care? Hardly.
“I think people like it when a band is not forced onto them,” explains Chris Bratten. “There’s a much stronger connection when it happens like that.”
Indeed, Enter Shikari have achieved success with a minimum of outside assistance – and for all their detractors’ protests, that’s success in its purest form.