Lots of noises vaguely held together by a beat, Enter Shikari are one of those bands that will make most people born before 1990 feel old. This collection of b-sides and rarities probably only enhances that feeling by being all the more scrappy and noisy than their album. Most of it, to my fragile ears, sounds like what would happen if Vince Noir had a metal phase. And we can only imagine by the time they turn thirty, these guys probably won’t be able to make any noise at all from their poor abused little throats.
They sound best when they calm down a bit, like on ‘Keep It On Ice’ which gives us hope that maybe with patience we’d find that all their music is as interestingly constructed and worth risking our hearing for.
If you’re a fan, you’ve probably already got all the tracks on this, and if you’re not a fan, you’re not going to like it. But hey, it’s something for misunderstanding aunties and uncles to buy their nieces and nephews for Christmas.
