Enter Shikari Lose Themselves, In The Best Way
Ahead of their Australian return, Rory Clewlow and Chris Batten discuss Enter Shikari’s surprise album drop; one of the band’s strongest releases to date.
Words Sosefina Fuamoli // Image supplied
Since 2003, Enter Shikari have successfully kept their fans on their toes, expertly weaving threads of post-hardcore and electronic music together with ease.
Never relenting on emotional weight and intelligence, the British group have made a name for themselves when it comes to chasing and indulging in music that toes a line between sonic provocation and genre-bending fun.
With the release of their new album Lose Your Self, Enter Shikari have given fans a fresh collection of songs to sink their teeth into: a surprise drop that has since wrapped the fanbase up in rejuvenated excitement for the band’s next arc.
The record, comprising 12 songs that navigate desolation, despair and the futility of the current state of the world, is matched by brushstrokes of optimism and vibrancy that have been expertly painted throughout.
Featuring some of the band’s heaviest material in recent times, Lose Your Self has also afforded Enter Shikari the opportunity to lean into the creative process unburdened by the usual industry pressures of delivering an album. Though the music has been percolating away in the shadows for some time, the band has never felt so relaxed about the rollout of an album, as they have been about this one.
Maybe surprise releases are the way forward?
“I would love to do it this way, it’s been the most enjoyable album release ever,” guitarist Rory Clewlow laughs. “It’s been the most chilled album release time for us. We did a few shows and now we’re just back at home, hanging out!”
Both Clewlow and bassist Chris Batten tap in for a chat with The Note ahead of Enter Shikari’s Australian return this month and both are looking as content as can be.
“It’s been so stress-free and really relaxed, it’s been great,” Batten adds. “People can listen to it and enjoy it if they want, it’s brilliant. If you love something, you let it go!”
Lose Your Self follows on from Enter Shikari’s 2023 project, A Kiss For The Whole World; the band’s seventh album and their first to debut at #1 on the UK Albums Chart. An album that represented a significant creative peak for the group, the album propelled Enter Shikari onto more arena stages (including Wembley Arena in London) throughout 2024, while also bringing them back to Australia in 2025 for KNOTFEST.
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Returning to the drawing board for the album’s successor meant that the band could either stick with the layered and intrinsic musical formula that had already dictated previous albums or they could throw their own rule book away. Follow threads of influence wherever they may take them.
Says Clewlow, doing the latter has created an album that feels both consistent with their body of work, but also fresh and exciting for the band as well.
“This album has been the least contrived [of them all], we haven’t thought about it at all,” he explains. “In the past, we’ve sat down before properly writing and have dictated what type of album it would be. We’d have thirty song ideas that we’d whittle down, we’d have x/y graphs in the past to see where each would fall: Heavy or chill? Technical or easy to understand? We’d plot them down on a graph. With this album, we just worked on demos that we liked until eventually, we had enough songs. We had a deadline and then we were like, “Okay, well, this is the album.”
Reflecting on the way Enter Shikari have evolved as a group in the studio, both musicians admit that their well-defined dynamic over the years has benefited from new technologies, as well as new curiosities around production and instrumentation making their presence known.
As Batten remembers, “When we were making albums 18 years ago…obviously, a lot has changed since then. We’ve grown so much more confident over the years. The last two records have been self-produced, for example. It’s been one big learning curve.
We’ve become better at backing ourselves and to have faith in what we find exciting. That’s what we’re learning, that people will also find it exciting. It’s just been about backing ourselves. It can be hard to put yourself out there but over the years, we have become more confident.”
“It’s become a lot more DIY over the years as well,” Clewlow adds. “When we first started this band, Rou [Reynolds] couldn’t use software for making music at all. I remember saying to Rou, “Do you ever make synths in Logic?” and he was like, “Can you make synths in Logic?!” - this was after the first album, as well.”
“A lot has changed. We started this band five years before the iPhone, you know? The way we record albums now…rather than spending $40,000 on a studio, we’ll spend five grand on a mic, five grand on a digital interface and we can record at home or at an Airbnb. We’ll generally just go to an Airbnb now and set up a little studio ourselves, write and record there. It’s a nice and pleasant experience. One of us cooks each night, it’s all on our own terms; we’ll experiment and go at our own pace.
Australian fans will be among the first to hear some of the Lose Your Self tracks given the full Enter Shikari treatment on large stages this month. Having only performed the music at very intimate venues in the UK, the band is excited to unleash their full production once more.
It feels fitting, then, that this chapter begins in Australia - a country where the band has maintained a strong relationship with fans and industry alike for over a decade.
“Australia is a place that we look forward to just coming back to every time. We’ve had such great experiences there, we always feel really welcome,” Batten smiles.
“The festival circuits that we’ve had the pleasure of being involved in and just in general, the music industry there…everyone is great! We haven’t yet played any of this new material on a big stage. We really haven’t properly seen how these songs relate to people. Even at the release shows, it was all so new that people hadn’t had much time with the record. We’re very much looking forward to being able to play the new songs out there. Australia is just such a fun place to come to. It’s always been so good to us. “
Catch Enter Shikari at Hindley Street Music Hall on Saturday 16 May. Tickets on sale at moshtix.com.au.
