Certain bands pre-empt dramatic sea-changes in popular music. The ones that almost get there first. These outfits arrive a smidgeon too early and create sounds that are nearly – but not quite – what's just round the corner. Think of the pub-rockers presaging punk, or Sigue Sigue Spuktnik's sample-centric electronic pulse three years before rave arrived, only on the wrong drugs and with the wrong haircuts. Similarly, the second album from French electro outfit Justice, 2011's Audio, Video, Disco, predicted US-conquering EDM, but drew too much from The Who and too little from dubstep. Even earlier, in 2006, Enter Shikari, four teenagers from St Albans, showed extraordinary foresight, combining heavy rock with euphoric trance music. It was so unlikely and odd-sounding, yet now every metaller from Korn to Linkin Park is at something similar, and America's kids headbang to Skrillex, Bassnectar et al.
Enter Shikari are now on their fourth album. Their raw passion is admirable in a media universe where irony and smirking meta-perspectives have run riot. It pains me, then, to report that it's difficult not to smirk at The Mindsweep. Its earnestness is preposterous, opening with a po-faced shout out: "This is an appeal to the struggling and striving, stakeholders of this planet, this floating rock we call earth..." Oh dear. The same song will shortly invoke King Arthur and Excaliber. If they were Muse, coming on like a 21st century Queen, they might just get away with it, but their bombastic amalgam of Bring Me The Horizon and Chase & Status is simply cheesy.
There are moments when it works – the Prodigy-like "Anaesthetist", the straightforward nu-metal rocker "Torn Apart", the noisy closing number – but more often the listener is simply left cringing as they conjure up quotes from Socrates and Hippocrates amid death-metal roaring, terrace chant choruses, and bizarre production that's midway between Ellie Goulding and prog-metal. I usually enjoy Enter Shikari's adventures. Possibly Skindred fans and listeners in their teens may still do so but, for me, The Mindsweep is the sonic equivalent of embarassing sixth form poetry from a band capable of exhilarating, pushing boundaries and, perhaps, even hinting, once again, at what we'll be listening to in five years time.
Overleaf: watch the video for Enter Shikari's "The Last Garrison"