Enter Shikari score first UK number one album with A Kiss For The Whole World: "It’s mad that we’re in this position!"

Enter Shikari are celebrating after landing their first UK number one album with A Kiss For The Whole World.

The St Albans quartet - vocalist Rou Reynolds, guitarist Rory Clewlow, bassist Chris Batten and drummer Rob Rolfe - debuted at the peak of the charts by finishing 800 'chart units' ahead of their closest competition, The 1975.

In Louder's 9/10 review of the album, Ian Winwood wrote, "A Kiss For The Whole World might just be its authors' finest work yet. Rooted in the present, somehow it is still the sound of the future."

Speaking exclusively to Official Charts about their achievement, Enter Shikari say, “We’ve just found out that our album, A Kiss for the Whole World, is Number 1 in the Official UK Album Charts. That’s mad. Thank you to everyone who streamed it, bought it and rallied round us; we appreciate you so much!

“We’re on an independent label, playing music with a very progressive message, so it’s mad that we’re up here in this position. Thank you so much. Big up, big love!”

Shikari have previously scored five Top 10 album's in the UK: their 2007 debut Take to the Skies (4), 2012’s A Flash Flood of Colour (4), 2015's The Mindsweep (6), 2017’s The Spark (5) and 2020 album Nothing Is True And Everything Is Possible (2).

Debuting at number 2, The 1975's Live with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra was released only across vinyl, CD and cassette as an exclusive release for Record Store Day.

Enter Shikari and The Offspring will co-headline next month's Slam Dunk festival. Also set to appear at the pop-punk-orientated festival across May 27 and 28 will be Bowling For Soup, Billy Talent, Less Than Jake, Creeper, Four Year Strong, Malevolence and Holding Absence, among many others.

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.