Enter Shikari — A Kiss for the Whole World — Album Review
Alternative | Electronic | Rock
Listen on Spotify | Listen on Apple Music
Where do I even begin with Enter Shikari?; the band had made up a tremendous chunk of my musical teenhood, by virtue of their first three studio albums, Take to the Skies, Common Dreads, and A Flash Flood of Colour respectively. The latter album especially brings me back to some of my best teenhood days, and by that virtue, stood as one of my favourite albums of the 2010s.
But in the year of 2015, we saw the Hertfordshire four-piece switch their style up quite significantly, introducing a plethora of more electronic elements through their fourth studio album The Mindsweep. However, as someone who got into Enter Shikari so deeply due to their older material, this new stylistic change did leave a bitter taste in my mouth, and many of the friends who I enjoyed their music with seemed to agree.
And while the change that came with The Mindsweep was a bit of a curveball for long-time fans like myself, to say the least, things didn’t truly start going downhill until the release of Enter shikari’s fifth album, 2017’s The Spark. This was the moment in which the band’s music felt just a little bit too artificial to enjoy. In the case of that album, Enter Shikari felt less like a band, and more like a big sound machine with Rou Reynolds’ vocals pasted over the top, not to mention that the music on there felt like a complete loss of the band’s identity, and cheap-sounding to boot.
the disappointment only continued with their following album, 2020’s Nothing is True & Everything is Possible, which is arguably the least memorable album in the band’s entire discography. While there were a few tracks on there that allowed it to at least be more enjoyable than The Spark, it didn’t really do anything to reinvoke my faith in the band.
That being said, my expectations towards Enter Shikari’s brand new album, which they’ve named A Kiss for the Whole World, were set pretty low. But to my surprise, there were actually a few inklings of the band’s sorely missed chemistry.
Pairing my expectations set by the last album, with the fact that the singles known as “The Void Stares Back” and “Bull”, both of which were released only last year, my impression of A Kiss for the Whole World before listening to it wasn’t the best. However, when finally delving into the record from start to finish, I found myself actually enjoying the album a fair amount.
The opening title track certainly did a great job at fusing Enter Shikari’s new aesthetic with their classic energy. And from there onwards, there were a handful of other tracks that achieved the same.
By all means, I still wouldn’t go as far to say that A Kiss for the Whole World is a “revival” of the old-school Enter Shikari that long-time fans like myself know and love, and there are still a few bad apples in the batch in the case of this album. However, I need to give credit where credit’s due, and state my belief that A Kiss for the Whole World is still a great improvement upon the band’s two prior albums.
I was quite close to losing my faith in Enter Shikari’s current music entirely. However, A Kiss for the Whole World just about saved me from feeling that way. Enter Shikari have my attention once more (well, at least a little bit).
Favourite Tracks: A Kiss for the Whole World | Jailbreak | Giant Pacific Octopus (i don’t know you anymore)
Least Favourite Track: Dead Wood
So Recordings | Silva Screen Records
