Review Summary: A smile on my face.
Enter Shikari have returned with a stealth drop of their eighth album, and I expected to hate it. After three albums of middling pop-rock and egregious genre-mashing, I thought this was where the Hertfordshire four piece were. What we have this time is something that I can only describe as, well... Let's just say, if I were sixteen again, I would absolutely love
Lose Your Self. The lyricism is ropey at best, the songwriting is simplistic, but god if it isn't fun.
The album comes out of the gates strong. Opener and title track 'LOSE YOUR SELF' has
so much energy. 'Find Out the Hard Way...' and 'Dead in the Water' are also strong, a return to the enormous, heavy, synth-laden sound Shikari became known for. Two-parter 'The Flick of a Switch' hearkens back to the
Common Dreads 'Havoc' interludes: ludicrous, arrogant lyrics and a heavy-as-hell breakdown. There is an energy that pervades
Lose Your Self, and it's very difficult not to nod your head as you go. I couldn't stop smiling throughout my first listen.
This isn't to say that this album is a masterpiece. 'demons', 'it's OK' and 'Shipwrecked!' are, in a word, rough. Rou Reynolds has never been the best lyricist but his failings are laid bare in these tracks, and the heavy sections feel completely undeserved and unnecessary. The finale three-parter 'Spaceship Earth' is certainly heartfelt, but it feels pretty immature coming from a band who are now all reaching their forties. I guess it's just got to the point where I don't care?
It's silly. It's over-the-top. And it's just so much fun. I was an Enter Shikari superfan when I was a kid, and the highlight of my year would always be seeing them live and losing myself (get it) in the sound and energy of their sets. And as soon as I finished
Lose Your Self, I checked tickets for their upcoming tour. The production is enormous on this record, and I can only imagine just how good some of these songs will be live.
Lose Your Self is a ridiculous album. It's Enter Shikari at their core - a bunch of blokes wanting to make music that gets your pulse racing. After two albums that felt like a band in an identity crisis, with dead production and uninterested performances, it sounds like Enter Shikari have finally settled on an evolution of their 'classic' sound. Is it a classic? No. Is it their best album? No. Do I love it? I think so, yeah.
