Enter Shikari, a four-piece from St Albans, are playing at the Carling Academy in Newcastle on Tuesday, March 20, as part of their UK tour.

And despite just completing the first week of the largely-sold-out jaunt, they have confirmed a short run of dates for early 2010, including a gig at Middlesbrough Empire on February 9. Tickets are available from today.

Rou Reynolds (vocals/electronics), Rory Clewlow (guitar/backing vocals), Chris Batten (bass/vocals) and Rob Rolfe (drums) began rehearsing in a garden shed in their home town six years ago.

They forged a sound that melded hardcore punk with hardcore rave/trance, and in summer 2006 they packed out the MySpace tent at Download festival on reputation alone.

By November of that year they had become only the second unsigned band to sell out the London Astoria, and when they released their debut album, Take to the Skies, on their own label in 2007, it reached No4 in the charts.

It has gone on to sell 250,000 copies, and be certified gold, and the follow-up, Common Dreads, which came out in June, entering the charts at No 16.

But amid the moshpit madness they create there's a political message too.

"Politics are unavoidable," says Reynolds. "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."

But what are Common Dreads? "They're shared worries," says Reynolds.
"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."

The politics may come as a shock to those who had Enter Shikari pegged as nothing but a lurid new band for the misunderstood 'Skins generation'. They're much more than that.

Seated tickets are still available for their Academy gig. They're £16 from (08444)772000.