Album Review: Immersion by Pendulum

Go immerse yourselves... If Pendulum are hoping to make a good impression then the swift kick to the love spuds that is ‘Salt In The Wounds’ isn’t really a bad way to start. Okay, so it’s basically nothing more than an unsubtle re-imagining of ‘Blood Sugar’, but is that really such a bad thing? Either way, it’ll give the lovers and the haters something to argue about while the rest of us are off dancing like loons to the aggro-mosh of ‘The Vulture’.

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The Australian electro-rock band Pendulum has behaved a little like its name for the better part of 10 years. From Rob Swire’s professed love for hardcore and breakbeat down to the band’s public spat with Goldie over an alleged refusal to acknowledge their drum and bass roots (which turned out to be only half-true), they really have swung wide for such a musically narrow niche. Their latest album, which didn’t see a U.S.

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And so we welcome back Pendulum, the Aussies who are to musical subtlety what Edith Piaf is to regrets. Their sound – a cut'n'shut of drum & bass and sports metal with elements of emo – might be generously described as eclectic, but three albums in it's paying off: they're massive. Part of their appeal lies in their bombast, as 2008's, erm, bombastic hit Propane Nightmares proved.

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And so it begins. A mournful horn and an elfin tinkle give way to a martial, string-stabbed intro of Danny Elfman, nay, John Williams-level portentousness. These beats, it promises, are going to be planetary in scope. Space-time-fabric-warping in the massiveness of their farcicality. And from the ….

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Over the years, a plethora of artists have set out to create a fusion of dance and rock music with varying results, and Australia’s Pendulum certainly sit near the top of the pack. Having started life as drum ’n’ bass DJs, the unit increasingly incorporated live instruments in their shows and recordings, and with 2008’s In Silico they delivered an album that was a beat-driven, riff-laden rush of adrenaline from start to finish. Immersion sees the band further building upon these foundations, and it is arguably their most accomplished release to date, pulsating with electronic intensity while boasting an impressive variety of tones and styles, genuinely blurring the lines between genres.

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Their best album yet, almost as enjoyable as their frenetic live performances. Mike Diver 2010 While it’s true that critics (hello!) cry out for artists to exhibit evolution from album to album, every now and again a record’s so bad that stagnation would have been preferred. Pendulum’s second effort, 2008’s In Silico, was such a beast. An unfocused (not necessarily miscalculated) collision of dance and rock constituents, it sought to expand the tumultuous drum‘n’bass template of 2005’s Hold Your Colour.

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