Common Dreads

It’s a bad sign when an LP’s best moments are the interlude tracks titled ‘Havoc A’ and ‘Havoc B’, but Enter Shikari’s second album, Common Dreads, really is a pitiful attempt at mixing nu-metal and trance.
Songs like ‘Antwerpen’, ‘The Jester’ and ‘Hectic’ are passable if you’re in the market for Rage Against The Machine retreads. Elsewhere, however, dreadul lyrics spoil the fun. Consider these couplets from the preachy ‘Step Up’: “Sometimes I do wish apples were our currency/So your hoarded millions would rot in their vault/Then that’d teach you to lay off the assault/That you’re barraging on the lands of the poor.”
Maybe you have to embrace the ridiculous nature of Enter Shikari to appreciate Common Dreads but most of us don’t need to listen to ‘Juggernauts’ to realise that we’re “constantly relying on consuming to feel content”.
Enter Shikari are stating the obvious but delivering it as the word of God – if God were a connoisseur of post-hardcore screamo and dodgy techno that is.

Key Track: ‘Hectic’