AMG Review of Common Dreads

Paula Carino
All Music Guide

If such a genre as stadium-screamo exists, Enter Shakari is its definitive spokesband, churning out nu-metal riffage and anthemic post-hardcore epics that have made them a major draw in the U.K. On their second album, they expand from their chart-busting debut in subtle ways. The single "Juggernauts" is a dreamy, psychedelic number bookended by explosive electro passages. "Antwerpen" is nothing less than a prog metal journey, as ambitious as it is emotionally volatile. The second single, "No Sleep Tonight," is an emo mini-opera about class warfare that reads like the Jam's "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight" from the muggers' point of view. The album as a whole is an imaginative and muscular mingling of punk, metal, and pop.