In the press release for Enter Shikari’s new album, lead singer Rou Reynolds is proclaimed as a “visionary”. However, for the work of a visionary, Nothing is True and Everything is Possible is a decidedly pedestrian effort. Filled with bluster and bombast, the lyrics betray a shocking amount of cheesey and cliched teenage angst for the work of a group of thirty-somethings and it's backed by music that steals from all quarters without bringing anything new to the table. It may aim high but it falls spectacularly short.
Opening track “The Great Unknown” piles on old school ravey synth sounds, while “The Dreamer’s Hotel” is nothing but Prodigy-light. “Modern Living” has something of the flavour of rock jesters the Darkness but would probably even be rejected by them due to its spectacularly naff “we’re apocaholics / drinking gin and tonics” lyrics. Elsewhere there’s a symphonic interlude that seems to have none of the band performing on it, courtesy of the City of Prague Symphony Orchestra and arranged by George Fenton (whose previous notable work includes the soundtrack to Blue Planet). It’s all pretty desperate stuff that suggests a level of self-indulgence not previously foisted upon the listening public since the apex of prog rock, in the 1970s.
Maybe this was all to be predicted after the trite fare that was offered up by Enter Shikari’s last album The Spark, but it is quite a shock to be presented with a disc that doesn’t have any redeeming features whatsoever. It just has to be hoped that Rou Reynolds and his crew have a substantial rethink before their next visit to the recording studio because pretentious nonsense that takes itself this seriously is not something that the band are likely to remember fondly in years to come.
