Alfreido's Blog

I wrote an in-depth review for Pendulum’s album “In Silico” yonks ago (read it here if you wish). It’s probably been my most read blog post ever (that’s not saying much, no one reads this blog anyway. I’m pretty much having a conversation with myself). In the interest of informing people of my position on their latest album, Immersion, I thought I’d jot down a few notes. In summary though, it’s still no Hold your Colour, but it sounded a lot better than In Silico to me.

• Although there’s clear rock influences throughout this album still, they’ve toned it down a fair bit (apart from two songs). We’re still not getting the inspirational drum and bass that Hold your Colour presented, but it seems Pendulum are more comfortable with their genre shift now.
• In saying the above, there’s heaps of throw-backs to Hold your Colour. A lot of the songs in this album contain similar structures and influences to Hold your Colour songs. I’m not sure if this is a case of acknowledging the earlier album or Rob Swire running out of ideas. You be the judge of that.
• Being a Nine Inch Nails fan, I had a nerdgasm to the song Comprachicos. The song was even short enough that it didn’t start sounding repetitive like Pendulum songs sometimes do.
• I have to applaud Pendulum’s efforts on The Island and Set me on Fire, two songs which breached different genres (house and dubstep, respectively) They sounded like more comfortable experiments than anything In Silico could provide.
• Salt in the Wounds is Slam.
• Self vs Self should not have been on the album. I was enjoying it right up to that song. I’m not saying I hate the genre, I’m saying it hits you like a brick in the head when listening through the album. Intended effect or not, I think it should’ve been either a hidden track or not on there at all.
• The album art is cool, if not cliched.
• My favourites are The Fountain, The Island and Comprachicos.
• Good effort Pendulum.