Enter Shikari have announced two intimate warm up shows for their UK tour, taking place next month.

The new warm up gigs come as the St Albans metal band are gearing up for their biggest ever UK and European arena tour, which kicks off in November and includes two nights at London’s Alexandra Palace.

Each set to take place in October, these will be the band’s first live dates since they played in Tokyo in May. Originally, they were set to bring their tour to North America in June, but those gigs – as well as some more later in the year – were ultimately cancelled due to visa issues.

The first of the warm-up gigs takes place at O2 Academy Oxford on October 21, before continuing the following night with a stop at the O2 Academy Leicester.

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The arena tour starts in Nottingham on November 13, and those dates all feature support from Holding Absence and The Callous Daoboys. Every ticket sold for the arena shows will include a £1 donation to the LIVE Trust – protecting, expanding and supporting grassroots music in the UK.

Visit here for tickets to both the warm-up shows and the arena tour.

Enter Shikari UK tour dates are:

OCTOBER
21 – Oxford, O2 Academy Oxford [Warm-up show]
22 – Leicester, O2 Academy Leicester [Warm-up show]

NOVEMBER
13 – Nottingham, Motorpoint Arena
14 – Cardiff, Utilita Arena
15 – Hull, Connexin Live
18 – Glasgow, Hydro
19 – Manchester, Co-op Live
20 London Alexandra Palace
21 London Alexandra Palace

The upcoming gigs come in celebration of Enter Shikari surprise releasing their album ‘Lose Your Self’ back in April.

Speaking to NME about the meaning, frontman Rou Reynolds explained that the record was about sparking unity at a time when people can feel more isolated than ever.

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“One of the main things that produces nihilism is that feeling of, ‘Oh I’m just one person, what can I do?’ This album at its core is a criticism of hyper-individualism,” he explained. “It goes against the idea that we’re divided from each other and disconnected from the natural world. That is the core tenet of capitalism, and it’s becoming more and more dangerous.

“It’s starting to be normalised and it feels so concrete because it’s all we’ve known for decades. It’s like we all have completely forgotten our power as a collective… but that’s how the system protects itself. It forces individualism down our throats and backs us all into a corner until we’re like, ‘This is just how it is and how it’ll always be’.”

On the reasoning for dropping the album with no pronouncement, he said: “There’s no lead-up. There are no singles. There’s no drip-feeding people information about the albums. Instead, it’s like, ‘Here it is. Absorb it.’ That excites me because it means that people will be listening to the album in full and taking it in. They won’t be skipping songs because they’re not the singles they’ve already heard. It makes it into one entity.”

“Plus, we got the Number One on the last record, so it means we don’t have to think so cynically about anything,” he added. “We can just put this out as we want it to be out.”

The post Enter Shikari announce intimate warm up shows for October appeared first on NME.