Jonathan Geddes

THERE are some bands who never take chances when making albums.

Enter Shikari are the opposite of that approach - the Hertfordshire noise-makers are continuously chasing new ideas for their music.

Fourth album The Mindsweep isn't just bursting with the mosh-pit friendly electronic rock the quartet are best known for, but features added brass and strings as well.

"We just write music for ourselves and we've got a huge spectrum of musical influences, explains drummer Rob Rolfe, ahead of a sold-out Barrowland show on Saturday.

"I've got stuff on my laptop and phone that goes from classical to dance and jazz, and the other guys take the rock side of the spectrum, so there's a wide variety of interests.

"We don't want to be held back by any kind of genre, and we're in a good position where we're not being held back by anything - we could try anything and it wouldn't sound strange because people never know what to expect with us."

That means the group can throw anything into the mix, from the furious dance-rock of single The Last Garrison to Dear Future Historians, an eerie piano ballad.

Given that The Mindsweep was the band's first release since 2012's A Flash Flood Of Colour, it's not surprising they had quite a few ideas when they started recording.

"We had some pretty polished demos before we started, and about 150 ideas, whether that was just a riff, a groove, a lyric, and we pieced that together into about 20 songs, and from there we whittled them down to 12 for the album," explains Rob.

"That's a heartbreaking process, because there wasn't a single song that we didn't think should be on the album, so it was a traumatic experience getting rid of a few of them! We actually ended up cutting two songs in half and then putting them together, which made Dear Future Historians."

It's not just their own songs that the band have dipped into recently, as a Radio 1 session saw them have a crack at the Game of Thrones theme.

"We actually held off watching Game of Thrones, as everyone seems to love it, and I was doing the snooty thing of not wanting to get onboard with it," says Rob.

"Then we were doing three shows in Spain.

"We didn't have much else to do between shows so we got the laptop open and started on season one.

"By the end of the shows we'd watched three seasons of it.

"Radio 1 asked us for a wild card when we were doing a session, and we didn't know what to do, so thought we'd give Game of Thrones a bash.

"It seemed to go well, Rory (Clewlow, guitarist) was quite nervous about the awkward guitar part and I think he smashed it.

"We got a Tweet from the guy that plays Hodor (Kristian Nairn) saying that he was a fan of us, which was cool."

It's not the first time they've gone in for some pop culture, either...

"Years and years ago, we were playing a battle of the bands in our local town hall and we did the Ghostbusters theme," recalls Rob.

"We always like doing covers, so I'm sure something else will tickle our fancy in the future."

What doesn't tickle the band's fancy is the problems with politics in Britain.

They've written about the political system on several occasions, and Rob believes a change is needed.

"I think the political system that we have at the moment doesn't work, and that's quite obvious when you look at the state of things," he says.

"We can't look after the weakest people around us, while people are profiting massively at the other end of the scale. I don't understand how you can't look at that and think there's something wrong."

There are few things wrong with a Barrowland visit, though.

The band even released an official bootleg of a previous Barras gig in 2012.

"We can't wait for the Barrowland," adds the sticksman.

"It's guaranteed to be a good night, and Scottish audiences always kick off.

"One of the very first big tours we did had a show at the Barrowland and a fan gave us a gift of a bottle of Buckfast.

"I made the wrong decision to drink some of it before going on and that was definitely not the right idea..."

Enter Shikari, Barrowland, Saturday, sold out, 7pm