Enter Shikari – A Kiss For The Whole World
Reborn and re-energised from the ashes of a music-less lockdown world, the St Albans quartet return with yet another remarkably astute, ambitious and self-aware album
Despite not writing for two years and fearing the death of their band, A Kiss For The Whole World – Enter Shikari’s seventh effort – marks a resurgent and rampant follow-up to the similarly chameleonic soundscape of 2020’s Nothing Is True & Everything Is Permanent.
Born from their first taste of a post-lockdown live show, that chaotic, raw energy is freshly squeezed into the very heart of this record, and juggled alongside an arrangement of horns, dropped guitars, bubbling, bassy synths, and some 'dutty' dub beats as, well, any good Enter Shikari record now should.
Lyrically, a crisis of self in a post-modern world persists throughout (Dead Wood; (pls) set me on fire; Bloodshot) while interjected by a reclaiming voice of positivity that begs to embrace hope (A Kiss For The Whole World, It Hurts, Jailbreak). On Goldfish ~, Rou Reynolds delivers some of his finest quips to date: ‘Jesus ain’t gonna save ya / He’s a shit multitasker'.
Bands often proclaim a rebirth when a new album is due, but on A Kiss For The Whole World, you can genuinely feel the life pouring out of the record. It’s eccentric, erratic and just the sui generis of what Enter Shikari stand for.
Listen to: (pls) set me on fire, Bloodshot, It Hurts