Enter Shikari are an English post-hardcore band, which makes heavy use of synthesised sound effects. They formed in 2003 in St Albans, Hertfordshire where all four members are from, as an evolution from an earlier band, Hybryd. The band is named after one of the band member's relative's boats, called Shikari. Shikari also means 'Hunter'. Their debut album, Take to the Skies was released on March 19, 2007 and reached #4 in the Official UK Album Chart.
Великобритания
The band has managed to gain some success within the music industry despite turning down offers from many of the large record companies, and instead deciding to 'go it alone' signed to their own independent record label Ambush Reality, with assistance from their distributor Vital.
During 2003 to 2004, the band released three demo EPs, that were available from their gigs and their website. In August 2006 they released the download only single "Mothership" which became the single of the week on the iTunes store. Their first physical single was a double A-side featuring re-recorded versions of "Sorry You're Not a Winner" and "OK Time for Plan B", which had previously been featured on one of the demo EPs. It was released on October 30, 2006 and was limited to 1000 copies of each format and sold out within the first week of release. In mid January 2007, Enter Shikari's first single, "Mothership" entered the UK singles chart for one week at number 151, on Downloads only. This was followed a week later by "Sorry You're Not a Winner/OK Time for Plan B", which charted at number 182 on the singles chart (despite its physical formats being chart ineligible at the band's request) and number 146 in the Download Chart.
In January 2007, Enter Shikari came 5th in BBC online's "Sound of 2007" poll, which compiles the views of numerous music critics on who they predict will achieve success in 2007[1]. They also made the NME's "New Noise 2007", a list of the bands it considers most likely to achieve success in the coming year (previous years lists have included the likes of Arcade Fire, Hot Chip and Bloc Party).
The next single released was "Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour", on March 5, 2007. This was the band's first single to be released from their forthcoming debut album, it contained a rerecorded version of the song "Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour". It reached 27 in the Official UK chart. The band's debut album, Take to the Skies, was released on March 19 2007 and on March 25 it reached number 4 in the UK Official Album Charts. It contained re-recordings of many of the songs that had featured on the demo EPs and singles that were released prior to the release of the album.
During the month of March, 2007 it was announced they would be playing at, Download Festival, Reading and Leeds Festivals, Give it a Name, Glastonbury Festival, Oxegen festival in Ireland and Rock am Ring in Germany (one of world's largest festivals). On March 30, 2007, Enter Shikari announced that their next single would be "Jonny Sniper" [2] and would be released on June 18th. The song's video was premiered on May 21st.
The band recently made an instrumental song entitled "Enter Shikari vs. Blue Dragon" for the game Blue Dragon for the Xbox360[3].
On June 6, 2007 they performed a live show on BBC Radio 1 for Zane Lowe at BBC Radio Theatre.
They will play an eleven date headline tour in October/November including their biggest ever headline gig in the 4,921 capacity Carling Academy Brixton.
The song "Ok, Time for Plan B" is featured on the soundtrack for Madden 2008.