Enter Shikari – Lose Yourself (So Recordings) [Matt Bladen]
I’m very much in favour of surprise releases, though perhaps a journalist trying to keep up with the mountain of new albums every month I shouldn’t be, however I find bands who just drop an album to little fanfare seem to be the ones that really care about it.
Frontman Rou Reynolds wanted people to hear this record “as a cohesive whole, no lead up, no singles, and no explanation.” For Lose Yourself to be a full experience for their listener and for the band not “to be distracted by chart races, or accolades [just] music being presented in a natural way.”
All lofty sentiments but if the music isn’t very good it’s all bravado, however with Lose Yourself, Enter Shikari enter their darkest, heaviest and most mature period with this new album, reflecting the very real sense of despair in the world at the moment, it’s and album that has a thematic, dare I say, conceptual nature to it, perhaps Rou’s stint with Jeff Wayne’s War Of The Worlds has influenced him here?
You need to start at the beginning and cling on right until the end, no picking and choosing tracks as a playlist but listening as complete album. Despite dealing with some pretty heavy topics, ones that Shikari have never been afraid to talk about, such as immigration, the government, desolation, poverty and just the outright futility that is rife through the planet.
However with this stark realism there’s always hope, always optimism, that little spark that things CAN change if YOU are the change. If you’re a long time listener of Enter Shikari then you’ll know politics and their ideology is at the core of what they do and you’ll also know how dexterous their music can be blending electronics, metal, rock, emo and more, going deeper down the progressive rabbit hole here.
Ambience builds into club ready beats for the title track, Rou’s brilliant vocals adding to the anthemic dancy beginnings where the likes of Darude permeates through the chunky riffs. Those increased thematic elements mean the songs all segue into one another, Find Out The Hard Way is a jangly emotional rocker that shouts their ideology from the rooftops.
As the twitching electronics come back on the venomous Dead In The Water while they continue to link the tracks together as hope arrives on the D’n’B dreaminess of demons. I love how dense these songs are, the genres are all over the place, I can’t keep my hands clean for instance has the rawness of RATM as it shifts towards the dreamy string driven it’s OK, the lyrics on this one are particularly good and important in our current climate.
Both of these songs are bookended by the two parts of The Flick Of A Switch, more of that ‘classic’ Enter Shikari approach which makes for an interest ‘suite’. Speaking of suites the final three tracks are linked forming the full Spaceship Earth suite, introduced by the euphoric Shipwrecked! Spaceship Earth suite closes the record with a fantastic, cinematic, crescendo full of strings, passion and sheer brilliance, a sound of a band reaching a new nadir in their career with Lose Yourself.
If you think that they’re the band with that “clap, clap, clap” song then I’d suggest pressing play on Lose Yourself and re-educating the way you think about Enter Shikari as they’re perhaps the most innovative and impressive bands in the last 25 years. 10/10
Metal Church – Dead To Rights (Rat Pak Records) [Rich Piva]
A new Metal Church album. I think we are using the term “Metal Church” loosely here given the majority of the line up on the new record, Dead To Rights, has three members that joined only in 2025 (including Dave Ellefson and another new vocalist, Brian Allen), and besides original member and rhythm guitarist Kurdt Vanderhoof, the most tenured member of the band joined in 2008, far after the classic records that the band with the name above came out.
So I am not going to compare this to anything to do with the old Metal Church that wrote one of the best metal songs of all time (Badlands) and put out some of the best metal records of the 80s, but we still have the main songwriter in the band who delivered some solid thrash songs for a record in 2026.
I am not sure the songs sound more like Metal Church or the latest incarnation of Overkill, but either way some of these songs rip. The opener, Brainwash Game, is killer. New drummer (new to MC, he has been around) Ken Mary shows how great he is on F.A.F.O and why he is a perfect fit for an old school metal band still ripping it up in 2026.
Some of my other favourites include Feet To The Fire, which slows the tempo just a bit but still kicks ass, and My Wrath, which gives me the most old school Metal Church vibes on the record. I think the songs are a bit too one note, in that they pretty much all sound very, very similar. I am not sure I could tell the difference between any of them even after three listens. That is not saying they are bad, it is more that the songs all sound very much the same.
There is some good stuff on Dead To Rights, but all the songs sound way too much like the one before it and it does drag a bit because of it, but I love the fact, after all the years and the tragedy, that Metal Church still exists in 2026. Even if only a handful of the songs are memorable and stand out, and even if there is only one member who has been in the band for more than 25% of their existence. 6/10
Cryptworm – Infectious Pathological Waste (Me Saco Un Ojo Records) [Charlie Rogers]Bristolian putrid gore merchants Cryptworm are back with a third full length offering, this one reeking of putrescence as much as those that came before. Punishing low tuned guitarwork, tectonic bass playing, and rapid style switching punchy drumming, all accompanying Tibor’s sewer burps – this lineup of Cryptworm saw their success from 2023’s
Oozing Radioactive Vomition settled into their grooves and sought to replicate with aplomb.
The record is full of writhing, pulsating riffs that spew all over the fretboard, some tightly moving in sync with bass and drums, others left open for the guitar to run sawing tremolo leads while bass and drums hold the space. Not opting for over the top guitar gymnastics, but focusing on solid grooves that hook the listener in and demand your head bob along is what Cryptworm, and indeed much of Putrid Death Metal, opts for, and this record stays true to form.
Manic up-tempo lines leading into mid paced stompy parts builds excitement before the payoff is delivered with a throbbing call to vibe. Some parts even decay into sludgy, mopes, drawing the corners of your mouth into that stinkface we all crave for – a great example of this is how the track Embedded With Parasitic Larvae feels like it bursts and falls apart from the mid-section running into the ending.
Tonally, it’s what you’d expect from bands of this ilk, with the guitars having a great balanced sound. The palm muted chugging chops just right, and the single note riffs dancing clearly over the rest of the band like a long legged aberration from The Thing. Bass is blended in so most of the time you just hear the bottom frequencies rumbling away under the guitarwork, but when the guitar dies away and we hear passages with just bass there’s a grating overdriven fuzz on the tone that holds it’s own.
Drums are very clear, the snare especially is quite pingy and sounds fabulous. Jay’s balance of straight beats and manic fills are one of Cryptworm’s strengths and he really does the music justice here keeping the percussion dynamic and interesting. My biggest gripe is that there’s some harsh frequencies in the cymbal wash that cut a little to hard through, and listening at higher volumes can be a little painful when there’s a lot of overhead work.
Vocals are generally going for sewer monster aesthetic, with giant frontman Tibor having some of the best burps in Britain currently. He varies it up with some choking, almost strangulation sounds on tracks such as Encephalic Feast that are downright stomach churning. Death metal should put you on edge, and pushing the vocal performance this way is certainly one way to do that.
Overall, this is a very strong record from one of the most exciting bands in the British underground right now, and any self respecting death metal fan should make it a priority to give it a spin at least 3 times. I’m looking forward to hurting my neck muscles seeing these tracks played live soon. 8/10
Melechesh – Sentinels Of Shamash (Reigning Pheonix Music) [Mark Young]
Sentinels of Shamash is the new EP from Melechesh, its release acting as a stop gap whilst they are working on their new full length album. The band themselves have noted that they have had a couple of setbacks on their trip but are not giving up. The EP itself has three songs, each one steeped in their own unique way of building things.
Melechesh take no time in going straight for the throat with The Seventh Verdict starting proceedings in grand fashion. Their bio announces them as Sumerian/Mesopotamian Metal, and those touches are evident from the off. There are rapid riff breaks, pummelling drums and a delightful fusion of black metal with their own unique stamp dominating every step. What they have is a strong opener, one that makes the most of this approach which makes sure that it satisfies the core requirements of our favoured music – fast, aggressive and intense.
Personally, it is a little overlong but that is a personal opinion and one that is more than likely not shared elsewhere. With In Shadows, In Light they push this envelope further. I don’t mind long songs by any means as long as there is a substance behind them. If it’s a long song for the sake of it, then I’ll lose interest. They start it on that front foot again, moving it forward and mixing those traditional approaches in with the black metal.
There is something to it in how they arrange it, its heavy without feeling bloated and the guitar tone is one that conveys the feeling of speed at every turn. Being honest, they could have trimmed this a little, but that is me. In their defence there is a structure to this, the game is to keep things moving forward at all times. It’s something that you can’t argue with as they don’t take the foot of the gas at any point.
Raptors Of Anzu channels the power cosmic in its opening passages, dropping into lightning fast black metal with an added twist. It’s definitely in keeping with the vibe that everything must be played as fast as we can, bringing a feeling of a train practically leaving the tracks. Its frenetic and for me is what you want to hear. As EP’s go, it’s a strong release that knows what it wants to do and how it’s going to get there. Riffs are front and centre and delivered with speed and skill and of course the drumming is exemplary, and there is very little to complain about.
Personally, I’d have liked them to be a little more ruthless with the song lengths, but ultimately its their art and their endeavours. There is nothing here that is going to turn off existing fans, and certainly plenty to garner new ones. Its difficult to score because in effect there are no weak songs here from them. So, lets go with an 8/10
