ENTER SHIKARI
Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible AMBUSH REALITY / SO RECORDINGS
Before hitting play on NothingIs True&EverythingIs
Possible, make sure to rid yourself of any lingering expectations. Not because Enter Shikari won’t live up to them, of course – to put it succinctly, this is effortlessly one of their fiercest and most cerebral bodies of work yet – but because it’s truly impossible to predict all the meteoric surprises, purist-enraging musical excursions and kaleidoscopic plot twists the English electronicore warriors pull throughout its mercilessly unhinged and defiantly ambitious 45-minute runtime.
Right off the bat, the LP marks a luminous return to form for the quartet after 2017’s middling TheSpark: where that record embraced subtlety and cohesion, LP6 is raw, powerful and impassioned. And, perhaps most importantly, shredder Rory Clewlow is allowed to wreak frenzied havoc on his fretboard once more; though not as blindingly intense as some of their earlier, more metallic work, the riffs on this album are consistently engrossing and razor-sharp. There are a million and one different sounds and styles strewn across this sonic battlefield, and yet it’s always Clewlow’s craftsmanship that we find ourselves frothing the hardest over (though we here at
AustralianGuitar may, shockingly, have a slight bias).
For those fussy eaters and genre purists amongst us, save yourself the pain and find something more vanilla to enjoy. It’s a stupendous feat in itself that Shikari have crafted such a fluid and flavourful record that a cut like “Apocaholics Anonymous” (a filthy downtempo club banger) can sit comfortably alongside “The Pressure’s On” (an effervescent synthpop slow-burner), “The Dreamer’s Hotel” (a belting pop-punk romp) and “Elegy For Extinction” (a full-on orchestral epic). Even on a thematic wavelength, Rou Reynolds and co. pin a bubbly queer anthem next to a slamming political takedown and make the transition feel completely natural – some truly insane shit, if we may say so ourselves.
Like most of the band’s discography, you’ll be doing yourself a disservice not to let your first playthrough of Nothing ring out in its entirety, volume cranked to 11 through your best pair of headphones or hi-fi setup. Not only do the tracks bend and bleed to form a cohesive, yet dizzyingly adventurous journey, but the production (led by Reynolds himself, no less) is so dense, diverse and dynamic that the LP as a whole offers a riveting minefield of musical easter eggs to unearth.
At once uneasy, nihilistic and strewn in a palpable sense of anxiety, yet buoyant, upbeat and explosively fun,
NothingIsTrue&EverythingIsPossible will certainly go down amongst Enter Shikari’s brightest achievements. And it’s a very fitting album for 2020, to say the least.