Enter Shikari have a habit of arriving unannounced, and “Lightyears” is no exception. Dropped as a surprise on October 28, it is the band’s second new track since they announced an indefinite hiatus after their 2027 touring commitments — the follow-up to October’s “Higher Ground” — and it lands with the weight of a band who know the clock is running, but refuse to sound like it.

The song started with frontman Rou Reynolds digitising his family’s old camcorder tapes: holidays, Christmases, school concerts, birthdays. Watching versions of himself that no longer exist, and people who are no longer here, could have made a maudlin record. Instead, Reynolds turns it outward. “Lightyears is not only me speaking to loved ones who are no longer with us, it’s also me speaking to my former self,” he has said — and the song plays like that conversation going kindly. Seeing the innocence and fragility of who you were as a child, he argues, can quiet the relentlessly critical voice in your head now. That is the emotional core here, and it is why the track earns its lift rather than just asserting it.

Musically, it is Shikari uplift: the chorus swells — “My heart, it swells like the timpani,” as Kerrang! singled out in naming it the week’s No. 1 new track — and the song searches for light even in the worst of times. It is tender without going soft, anthemic without going hollow, the sound of a band that spent April’s surprise album Lose Your Self staring at desolation and still found glimmers of hope threaded through it.

Timing sharpens it. The band head into their biggest UK and European arena tour next week, starting November 3 in Hamburg, with US dates in January 2027. Every new Shikari song from here carries a valedictory charge. “Lightyears” meets that moment the right way: not a goodbye, but a reminder to be gentler with the person you were — and, by extension, the person you are now. Press play loud, and let it do its work.

Rating: 4.6/5

LISTEN:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPS99OW_4Tg

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/5K6a7PkYNfxfjd7ZdubipI