Product Description

'Take To The Skies' is the eagerly anticipated debut release by overnight success story Enter Shikari. The St. Albans based four piece build on their reputation as one of the country's most exciting live acts with an genre-hopping album ofincredible intensity. Produced by the band themselves and recorded over 2 weeks in 2006, 'Take To The Skies' is a compelling combination of post hardcore, metal and trance, the result of which is a raw, uplifting album. Includes the singles 'Anything Can Happen In The Next Half Hour' and 'Sorry You're Not A Winner.'

Track Listing

1. Stand Your Ground This Is Ancient Land
2. Enter Shikari
3. Mothership
4. Anything Can Happen In The Next Half Hour
5. Interlude
6. Labyrinth
7. No Sssweat
8. Today Won't Go Down In History
9. Interlude
10. Return To Energizer
11. Interlude
12. Sorry You're Not A Winner
13. Interlude
14. Jonny Sniper
15. Adieu
16. OK Time For Plan B
17. Interlude

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1919 in Music
• Released on: 2007-03-19
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Explicit Lyrics

Amazon.co.uk Review
The debut album from St Albans quartet Enter Shikari is an impressive testament to one band's spirited self-reliance. Not only does Take To The Skies touch down on Shikari's own homegrown label, Ambush Reality, this is the sort of unlikely soundclash – hardcore punk meets glowstick-waving rave – that millions said wouldn't work, but when done right, very clearly does. Not everyone will get it, of course – you can almost hear the generation gap yawning as "Stand Your Ground; This Is Ancient Land" kicks in - a mix of drum'n'bass snares, trance keyboards, and growled profanity that should leave the older rockers scratching their heads. But like Lostprophets before them, Enter Shikari are clearly something far more than a kiddie fad. The likes of "Mothership" and "Anything Can Happen In The Next Half Hour" tremor with the sort of earthquake breakdowns and thrash riffs moshpits were made for, and where synthesisers fire up, they do so with a remarkable cohesiveness, adding a surprising, euphoric counterpoint to the barked metal aggression. As with Lostprophets, time will tell if Enter Shikari have the anthems to become part of the metal big leagues, but Take To The Skies is an impressive, energetic starting point. –-Louis Pattison

Customer Reviews

Stand Your Ground, This is Ancient Land!!
When Frankenstein wnet grave-robbing and slammed all of his corpses together in an unholy abination, we all thought - 'Wow, that really should never of happened...'
And we were right. It shouldn't. As it turned out, Frankenstien's Monster ripped open many of Frankenstein's family members. So fusion isn't always a good thing.
But with Enter Shikari (Shikari meaning 'hunter' in Japanese) fusion is a good thing. A very good thing, indeed. It should never work; on paper, it sounds... wrong. Rave, dance, metal, hardcore, rock. All slammed together in one genre. This amalgamation seems... unnatural. But it works. And so very well.
The interludes can get a little annoying if your iPod or MP3 is on shuffle; they lull you into a false sense of securtiy - you expect the song to come up that it eases you into, and then plays some God-awful Phil Collins. Not pretty. Aside from that, their is no fault in the album.
Every track is immense in its own way, from the unashamedly brash opening lyric of the album (when you hear it, you'll know what I mean) to the dying, album-wide refrain at the end, Take to the Skies is something that cannot be debated in its splendour.
Even the less raucous tracks (I.e; Today Won't Go Down in History and Adieu) have a spell-binding edge that speaks serenity and musical mastery. Mothership, Enter Shikari and Labyrinth stand out to me, purely for the raw energy and panache they convey. Keyboards are utilized well, as are synths, beats and a mix of harmonic and violent vocals.
Unfortunately, the God-of-all-musical knowledge that is NME magazine have referred to the most acknowleged single of the album Johnny Sniper (a by-word for condom, no less) as 'the worst song ever released by any band, ever'. This, oddly, is true, and yet because of that, that song has an ironic, unbeatable edge that is both cathcy and enigmatic.
Enter Shikari began as a Myspace hopeful, and as their talent permeated the walls of cyberspace, so we all came to know them. This album - despite some unlucky choices of interlude songs - is consistent, edgy, and a veritable recreation of Frankenstein's monster... albeit it doesn't go around ripping children limb from limb.

It get's you to do that.

Hertfordshire Hubris
Mrs Wolf has family in Hertfordshire.
A Hatfield pack of uncertain pedigree.

Following a recent sojurn there with Scatty and Grits (the cubs)
she returned with a basketload of gifts, including 4 jars of her
sister's homemade marmalade, an ebony framed sepia photograph
of a once famous local woodcutter and a copy of Enter Shikari's new album
'Take To The Skies', which I can only assume had been slipped in at the last moment
by my somewhat wayward nephew Warren without his Mother's knowledge.

(He knows that his favorite uncle is always up for a challenge!)

To enjoy this entertainment from these redoubtable sons of St Albans
you will either be :

1)Young and wearing a Gio-Goi hoodie.

2)From Hertfordshire.

or:

3)In possession of a robust sense of humour.

The Wolf, for his part, hasn't had such a good laugh
in a long-long time (he does not mean this in an unkind way).

There is something both unnerving and very funny about the
almost relentless, deadpan "sturm und drang" of this little epic.

Fierce thrash-guitar riffs, portentious synthesiser intrusions and
bucketloads of demonic shouting (just loving the shouty-shouty stuff).
The whole thing driven along with energetic aplomb by drummer Master Rob.

'Mothership', 'Anything Can Happen In The Next Half Hour', 'Labyrinth',
'Return To Energiser' and the blistering 'No Sssweat' all compete to
make our ears bleed in wholesome and good-natured fashion.

There is some respite in the lyrical and more melodically refined 'Today Won't
Go Down In History' and the uplifting anthem 'Adieu'.

'OK, Time For Plan B' with it's rousing battle cries is unintentionally hillarious!

In 'Jonny Sniper', however, this splendid little band would appear
to have accidently created a very fine pop song.

Scatty and Grits love it and have asked their mother to buy
them matching hoodies on her next visit to the market.

She is not amused !

Whats with all the haters!
i personaly think this album is amazin and i dont understand all the people giving it one star and saying its metal rave crap and you should go listen to led zepplin! people who like led zepplin and only listen to other bands like that simply wont like this style of music. its much braver than normal generic rock band. and i personally think that it is a breath of fresh air and would recomend it to any one who doesnt have a closed mind about music. stand out tracks for me are Jonny Sniper and Anything could happen in the next half hour