Enter Shikari are the well documented spokes group for concerned and antagonised teenagers, their ripples of emancipating sounds drove them on to becoming only the second ever unsigned band to sell out the Astoria.
Accelerating through at a ferocious space this is an indefatigable compendium of commentary on the issues pressing today. Rather than despondency and disgruntlement, the opening chords of an Enter Shikari song have you teetering on the edge of hope, and with each thrashing reverb and edgy chorus you are thrown headlong into hedonism and excitement.

Enter Shikari recognise that the morals that seep from their music could be perceived as preachy, but instead their creativity is sourced from the soul. “Politics are unavoidable”, says singer Rou Reynolds. “We just can’t write sappy music...we have the ability to influence people – and with that comes a responsibility to speak our minds.”

Not just an aural petitions versus the evils of Tesco (see town plans in St Albans) Common Dreads is a feisty record combining the causes with poetry (on Common Dreads ‘we must reunite’, Prodigy style dance hooks and Mike Skinner esque spoken word.

Of course Enter Shikari’s protesting is not comparable to that taking place in other countries, and neither can the dreads they are fighting. But it does have the ability to exuberantly incite the desire for political, social and personal emancipation – and that starts with losing structural limitations or music making and liberating limbs and lungs to dance and sing and take action.

By Francesca Baker

Rating: 7/10
Label: Ambush Reality
Release Date: Out Now