Enter Shikari – The Mindsweep

Once upon a time, a successful fusion of rock with ‘dance music’ was the great unattainable dream of modern pop, a quest which largely resulted in damp squibs farting pathetically at every turn. No such problems befall Enter Shikari, whose fourth album blends hardcore-drenched hooks with cacophonous trance and the gut-punching thud of dubstep, as Rou Reynolds’ impressive vocal dynamics alternate between honeyed croons and lung-busting screams.

From the top-heavy breakdown of Myopia to Torn Apart’s seamless drum’n’bass assault, The Mindsweep’s sonic extremes feel carefully calculated to punish as much as enthral. Similarly, Reynolds’ anti-establishment rhetoric – most viciously deployed on the class-warfare-tastic There’s A Price On Your Head – comes poised on the balance beam between education and inspiration, recalling the incendiary passion of Swedish leftists Refused. The unrelenting nature of this potent cocktail can be exhausting, but such concerns will seem utterly irrelevant in the sweaty hedonism of the moshpit.