ENTER SHIKARI Share New Single "It Hurts"

Enter Shikari are today sharing "It Hurts", the second single to be taken from their highly-anticipated forthcoming album A Kiss For The Whole World, which will be released on 21st April via SO Recordings / Ambush Reality. Listen to "It Hurts" on streaming services here.

"It Hurts" follows January's earth-shaking lead single "(pls) set me on fire". It brings with it a call to switch up our worldview and reassess the ways in which we judge ourselves - all in a flurry of race-to-the-finish-line intensity. Lead vocalist and producer Rou Reynolds explains:

"'It Hurts' came to me in a dream. Literally. Melody, chords, and fully-formulated chorus were all part of a dream that, thankfully, remained with me when I woke up. I was hiding under the duvet at 3AM, singing it into my phone, much to the bewilderment of my girlfriend.

Lyrically, "It Hurts" is about perseverance, and the importance of reframing failure as a fruitful and, in fact, pivotal route to progress. Society teaches us we should avoid and criticise failure, when defeat and honest mistakes can actually present us with insights that light our way forward.

In reality, we should be taught that simply to try makes us more than enough.”

Pre-order A Kiss For The Whole World here. Limited formats of the new album come packaged with the Live From Alexandra Palace 3 album & DVD, recorded live in December 2021 at the band’s sold out 10,000 capacity London show.

Enter Shikari have also previously announced a run of very special album release shows across UK, Europe and the US. Taking place in May this year, the band will be playing 3 very special US show, hitting Los Angeles (5/03), Chicago (5/5) and New York (5/10).

For full dates, info and tickets head to www.entershikari.com

More about Enter Shikari and new album A Kiss For The Whole World

As the calendar now signals three years since Enter Shikari last released an album - their UK #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 Festival Pilot in front of 10,000 fans. Where not a single new word flowed from the pen of Reynolds in the two years prior, a realisation was born that would come to define the band’s seventh LP: “I just didn’t realise that the human and physical connection to other people were so central to how I write,” he says. Enter Shikari isn’t just four people – it’s hundreds of thousands.

The album's lead single "(pls) set me on fire" sparked the next stage in the band’s evolution, and 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 f*****. I’ve never felt so detached from my soul, my purpose, my f****** 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 delipidated 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 naivety” – 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”.

More about Enter Shikari

5 UK top ten albums

2 UK top 40 singles

2 BRIT certified silver albums and 1 BRIT certified gold album

Multiple Kerrang! award winners, AIM Award winners and Heavy Music Award winners

3000 shows worldwide

Download full biography HERE

Find Enter Shikari Online

www.entershikari.com

VK Lynne with Ty Christian, Timo Somers, and Dan Hegarty Release New Single "It Hurts" + Official Music Video

"It Hurts" can be bought/streamed HERE

"It Hurts" (COVER) - VK Lynne, Ty Christian, Timo Somers, and Dan Hegarty:

VK Lynne along with Ty Christian, Timo Somers, and Dan Hegarty have released a new single "It Hurts" via DI Records.

What started out as an international and long-distance pandemic project turned into a hybrid in-person, real life collaboration when Ty Christian, founder of Mad With Power Fest and lead singer of Lords of the Trident, flew to Los Angeles to shoot the music video for "It Hurts", a duet with singer-songwriter VK Lynne of The Spider Accomplice.

The idea to put a symphonic metal spin on the alternative blues song came to VK as the lockdown dragged on. Some folks may remember her Vita Nova project in 2013, which saw her gather up 13 artists from 6 different countries to create an original album of gothic metal songs, all recorded virtually. She explains:

“Back then, I wanted to make the point that artists are only limited by their imagination; with Vita Nova, I was able to ‘sing with’ people that, up until then, I’d never met in real life. For this song, I wanted to make a statement about genre. ‘It Hurts’ was originally recorded by the great Beth Hart, a blues icon, and Dutch singer-songwriter, Born. Beth has been a big influence on me as a musician and my songs are always just a little blues and a little metal. This has been an issue for my band, The Spider Accomplice, because many times, the industry doesn’t really 'know where to put us,' because 'what is this genre?' That’s a frustrating question, which I’ve always felt, frankly, is bullshit.”

This new version sets out to prove just that. Lynne enlisted guitar heavyweight Timo Somers (ex-Delain) and drummer Dan Hegarty (Conflict One Zero) to give the music that metal punch.

“Timo knew exactly what I was trying to do right away. I sent him the original song and two days later he sent back his interpretation, which became the framework for the whole piece.”

But she also knew that the male voice had to be a powerhouse and she found that in Ty Christian, an operatic tenor who is no stranger to cross-genre music himself. Christian is also the lead singer of the power metal band, Lords of the Trident.

Colin McGeoch of Matte Black Audio took on the daunting task of mixing and mastering the files that came rolling into his mailbox from various parts of the world. Lynne was more than elated with the results.

“I played the song for my husband, a filmmaker, who said, 'OK, we cannot do a half-assed video for this. We have to get this crew in the same room.'” However, restrictions were still in place due to COVID, so bringing Somers from the Netherlands was impossible, but Lynne remained undeterred.

“I said to him, ‘Can’t we Tupac him in somehow?’" He frowned, then said, “Yeah, I think we can.”

In July of 2021, Christian boarded a plane from Madison, Wisconsin, to Los Angeles and met Lynne and Hegarty to create a video that captured all the intensity they’d put into the audio recording itself.

Director Nesto Rhea and his crew filmed everything while also keeping in mind where Timo would be inserted later in editing.

“There will always be challenges and the way we make music will continue to evolve, but if we evolve with it, creativity will find a way to flourish. These kinds of projects keep us sharp and allow us to do what we love, despite the miles and the naysayers."