Jager: Enter Shikari

Hertfordshire quartet Enter Shikari are the very definition of a self made band. MySpace? They already had 500 plus gigs under their belt by the time they got around to setting one of those up. Record Label? They use their own: Ambush Reality. Album production? They even took care of that themselves.

In this topsy-turvy musical world of label interference and over-production, Enter Shikari are refreshingly old school, and it seems to be working a treat. After a tour with Lostprophets and an upcoming European trek with Billy Talent this month, it seems there is hope for computer illiterates who can't be arsed logging in to check how many 'friends' they have. "MySpace might make it easier to get to more people but we did it the hard way," Chris Batten (bass and vocals) reassures The Skinny, ahead of the release of their debut LP. "For us it's just a great way to get feedback, we came about just before the whole MySpace thing. So we just hit the road."

The electronica-tinged post-hardcore act also have their first music video - for second single Anything Can Happen In The Next Five Minutes - in the can. The video itself is testimony that a real relationship with the audience has been built up over the long slog on the road, encapsulating the band's unique dance sound. "We went for the illegal rave type feel and the passion from that, which we get at our gigs. It's more a re-enactment of our light shows," Batten says of the reportedly strobe heavy set.

By all accounts so far, their live shows really are all that: lasers and lights which could have been nicked from Manumission, buzzing on-stage energy and, of course, human pyramids galore. Manumission isn't the only dance driven comparison to be made, however. The synthesizer work on songs like Anything Can Happen... and album compatriot Labyrinth could themselves have been adopted from a night at Ministry of Sound. However, this is where the relations to dance music end, as a diet of rock sub-genre hopping ensues within their sound: heavy guitar chords and screaming vocals are played off against arpeggio melodies and complex beats. This trend is bucked only by Adieu, an acoustic ballad of sorts.

Accordingly, Chris is wary of pigeonholing the band. "What we think it sounds like has always been more important than what anyone else does," he offers. So where does such a smorgasboard of styles come from? "We just got really bored of playing indie style stuff long ago, so we starting giving a metal edge to our music and eventually started getting into electronics. From there we've been going further down the experimental path." We're not going to tag it 'New-House' or some such obtuse shisse, but it's refreshing to hear a band mixing up the well travelled metal blend with an outside influence and knowing that it's all of their own design.