July 2020 Feature Release - The Revolution Edition

It's now July which of course means that we'll be nominating a brand new monthly feature release for each clan. This essentially means that we're asking you to rate, review & discuss our chosen features for no other reason than because we enjoy the process & banter.  

This month's feature release for The Revolution is 2013's "Rat Race" E.P. from English trancecore outfit Enter Shikari. This niche subgenre has proven itself to be quite divisive over the years however this particular release has a solid following with fans of the sound & we're interested to hear if you think it's worthy of your attention or not.

https://metal.academy/releases/16851

Not a lot to say about this EP from Enter Shikari. And that isn't necessarily a good thing. This record depicts a change of direction for the group, and they were smart to make it into a brief three track EP (if you don't include the remix of "Radiate") rather than a full length LP. It sees the band bringing most of their electronic elements to the forefront and would be further explored on later releases. Unfortunately, I never really liked Enter Shikari as a metal band; their guitars tones on this EP are so compressed and don't hit with punch. As the band moved away from heavier tones on further projects, I feel like they have seen sustained success, but Rat Race was a good framework for what's to come.

6/10

I gave this little E.P. four consecutive listens today so as to open myself up to something a bit different as I'd never experienced a trancecore release before . I had a vague idea of what to expect though & on first impression I wasn't surprised to find that it took me a LLLOOONNNGGG way outside of my musical comfort zone. In fact, I'd go so far as to question if this is actually metal at all because the riffs aren't really much of a focus here. But once I abandoned the idea that I should expect to hear any genuine metal, I found myself starting to enjoy the hooks & if you can get yourself to that point then you're ready to discover that the second track "Radiate" is an absolute banger with a huge epic atmosphere. At first I found it very hard to admit to myself that I really fucking enjoy that particular teenage dancefloor bomb to tell you the truth but I've now come to terms with it & I don't give a fuck what my evil kvlt extreme metal alter ego thinks of it either. The other two original tracks don't close to the same quality. "The Paddington Frisk" is a one minute punk-driven exercise that doesn't accomplish much while the title track offers some quality vocal hooks but manages to cancel them out with some cheesy female vocals & a few generic metalcore elements. The "Radiate" remix is a broken beat trance affair that's quite well done but lacks a bit of balls. To be fair, trance has never really been my thing so I was ever going to love that one. None of these three tracks are horrible but they don't offer me a lot of appeal.

So this is trancecore, eh? You know what? It's not nearly as bad as I thought it might be but I was surprised to find as much pop punk & indie rock in the huge vocal hooks & I was expecting there to be a lot more legitimate trance in the original mixes rather than the more mainstream EDM elements I got. This really is pop music though if you want to get technical. Thankfully the longest track is outstanding & is worth the price of admission alone which skews my scoring significantly & leaves me with no alternative but to give this short release a decent rating. And when I think about it, it WAS worth listening to just for that track given the short overall duration & the high percentage of that duration that "Radiate" consumes.

3.5/5

I'm glad that I gave this EP a second chance as I bumped my score up a bit afterwards. I've checked out my fair share of modern and electronic focused Metalcore and personally I don't think this is anything particularly special. It's not egregiously bad, "Radiant" is the obvious highlight on here as "The Paddington Frisk" and "Rat Race" seem to just be experiments rather than anything polished. I think the mainstream Pop Rock influence is what rubs me the wrong way with "Radiant", with the constant "Woahs" going on in the background, but it's not all bad. The track is varied with Metalcore buildups, rewarding Trance/EDM elements and a pretty killer Metalcore riff here and there, with an "emotional" soft portion that actually doesn't sound half bad. 

Since I try to keep up with modern releases and there are quite a few Metalcore names that I constantly recognize and check out. Most of them are moving towards this very poppy modern Rock mixed with EDM influences kind of sound, so I'm personally worn out on it since it doesn't bring too many new or exciting things to the table for me. The final remix of "Radiant" was pretty nice, while it doesn't take any risks whatsoever that's kind of what Trance is all about, at least on the EDM side of things. Getting into a melody or rhythm and just kind of riding it until it decides to end. I think this album would have made more sense if I was ever an Enter Shikari fan, as from what I can gather this was a short return to form for them. Overall not the worst example of modern Pop Metalcore I've heard. 

2.5/5