ENTER SHIKARI To Release New Album, 'A Kiss For The Whole World', In April

ENTER SHIKARI will release a new album, "A Kiss For The Whole World", on April 21 via SO Recordings/Ambush Reality. The band has shared the LP's lead single "(Pls) Set Me On Fire" as well as news of some very special monthly residency shows in the U.K. this spring.

Limited formats of the new album come packaged with the "Live From Alexandra Palace 3" album and DVD, recorded live in December 2021 at the band's sold-out 10,000-capacity London show.

As the calendar now signals three years since ENTER SHIKARI last released an album — their U.K. No. 2-charting album "Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible" — it is useful to think back to the final question the band last posed fans: "Is this a new beginning? / Or are we close to the end?" Little could they know just how close to the end things would end up feeling as the events of the early '20s dimmed the light in the furnace of their live juggernaut, and connection to their fans.

"At the time it felt like we ourselves, as musicians, were experiencing the death of our band," says lead vocalist and keyboardist Rou Reynolds.

Unsurprisingly, the key in the band's ignition came in the form of a live show as they headlined the Download Pilot festival in front of 10,000 fans. Where not a single new word flowed from the pen of Reynolds in the two years prior, a realization was born that would come to define the band's seventh LP.

"I just didn't realize that the human and physical connection to other people were so central to how I write," he says.

As new single "(Pls) Set Me On Fire" heralds the next stage in ENTER SHIKARI's evolution, the first words we hear from ENTER SHIKARI 2.0 don't come in the form of a question this time, but a command: "Please set me on fire". In other words, ignite the spark inside us and set us free. This may be a new ENTER SHIKARI but they've lost nothing in their flair for bold opening gambits.

Reynolds comments on the single's conception: "Honestly, I thought I was fucked. I've never felt so detached from my soul, my purpose, my fucking spirit. I didn't write music for almost two years. The longest I'd gone before that was two weeks. I was broken. It's almost as if my brain had asked: 'What is the point in music if it cannot be shared? What is the point in writing music if it's not to be experienced with others?' and then promptly switched itself off. '(Pls) Set Me On Fire' grew out of that desperation. This song is a projectile vomit of positive energy. Every emotion trapped inside me for two years, finally set free."

It was in the spring of 2022 that the band descended to the coastal town of Chichester, and a dilapidated farmhouse, to rebuild their studio setup and capture their renewed momentum on record. Using only solar power to track the album — in what Reynolds says was to "bring back some sense of naïveté" — the life-giving properties and Technicolor palate of "A Kiss For The Whole World" were made real.

Reynolds continues: "Back to basics. This band — my best friends — bundled into an old farmhouse, miles away from anywhere. Off-grid, and ready to rediscover ourselves. This album is powered by the sun, the most powerful object in our solar system. And I think you can tell. It's a collection of songs that represent an explosive reconnection with what ENTER SHIKARI is. The beginning of our second act."

"A Kiss For The Whole World" track listing:

01. A Kiss For The Whole World
02. (Pls) Set Me On Fire
03. It Hurts
04. Leap Into The Lightning
05. Feed Yøur Søul
06. Dead Wood
07. Jailbreak
08. Bloodshot
09. Bloodshot (Coda)
10. Goldfĭsh
11. Giant Pacific Octopus (I Don't Know You Anymore)
12. Giant Pacific Octopus Swirling Off Into Infinity…

ENTER SHIKARI has also announced a run of very special album release shows across Europe and the U.S. Taking place in May this year, the band will be playing three very special U.S. shows, hitting Los Angeles (May 3),Chicago (May 5) and New York (May 10). One week priority access to ticket pre-sales will be available to fans pre-ordering the album and current members of Future Historians, the band's fan club. General on-sale for remaining tickets will begin on Thursday, January 26.