DREAD POWERFUL; Enter Shikari are out to conquer the world..

Byline: Rick Fulton

ENTER Shikari are back and this time they will be even more in-your-face. The St Albans band mix hardcore punk guitars, screaming vocals and rave synths to create ragged raw music that could wilt flowers.

And with second album Common Dreads, they are mixing politics with their pile-driving music, adding The Streets-style socially aware raps.

Frontman Rou Reynolds admitted: "We just can't write sappy music. Personally, I can't write limp soulless songs about how lovely a girl is. If the first album was quite cryptic and metaphor-heavy, this one is more direct.

"Since we gained popularity we realised, whether we like it or not, we have the ability to influence people - and with that is a responsibility to speak our minds."

The first single Juggernauts is out on Monday and sounds like a cross between happy hardcore dance, The Streets and Manic Street Preachers.

The lyrics are a rallying cry to the young Skins generation asking their parents what kind of world they've made for them to become adults in.

Common Dreads is the title of the album, which is ready on June 15. So what are they? "They're shared worries," says Rou. "The things that concern people today on a global level - catastrophic climate change, wars, terror laws, CCTV society, modern imperialism and the affects of capitalism."

Rou, guitarist Rory Clewlow, bassist Chris Batten and drummer Rob Rolfe have always led.

Three years ago, they packed out the MySpace tent at Download and were the second ever unsigned band to sell out the London Astoria.

DREADPOWERFUL While other unsigned bands stick to their local area, Enter Shikari always wanted to spread their music as wide as possible.

Rob added: "The thing I get annoyed about with local bands around here is that they play so much around St Albans, they never go anywhere else.

"Lots of people come to watch them in St Albans but they don't try to get a following anywhere else.

"They never go up North, they never go to the Midlands or to Scotland. That's what we did.

"When we started, we literally booked hundreds of gigs wherever we could.

"By the end of it, people were coming to us with the gigs and we could literally pick and choose the ones we wanted to do."

The last time they played an in store in Scotland at HMV it was mobbed and they return for an HMV in store at Buchanan Street, Glasgow, at 5pm on June 17 . Rather than be shaped by a record label, they released their debut album Take To The Skies on their own Ambush Reality label. It went to No.4. The second album is released on the label.

They were awarded the NME John Peel Award for Innovation in 2007, Kerrang! Awards (including Best Live Band) and single Sorry,You're Not A Winner clocked up 6.3million plays on YouTube.

The new album was inspired by a local fight against Tesco in their home town of St Albans. The supermarket chain wanted to build a new store on green land and Rou and the rest fought alongside locals. "It was the first time we actively got involved in something like that," Rou said.

"And, collectively, we won." The album's concept was born and, after working on it in a garden shed in bassist Chris Batten's parents' back garden, they went to Arreton Manor on the Isle ofWight with producer Andy Gray, who wrote the Big Brother theme music as well as working with U2 and Korn.

Rou said: "It's fair to say this is a political album but we're aware that we don't want to preach ideas - our only solution to today's problems is to get together, share ideas and have fun.

"Because, ultimately, that's the Enter Shikari way. You're only young once, so positivity during dark times is as important to us as anything else.". Enter Shikari's new single Juggernauts is released on Monday. The album Common Dreads is out on June 15. Their Glasgow instore at HMV is on June 17.'They're shared worries.. the 'They're shared worries.. the things that concern us globally'

CAPTION(S):

SOUND: Like Street Preachers and the Streets DEMANDING: The new album is a rallying cry to the young Skins generation