:: Pendulum - In Silico

Pendulum

Oh dear! Has relocating to England started to affect drum & bass masters Pendulum? Their new album ‘In Silico’ seems to have them biting the hand that feeds them. Gone is the heavy drum n bass influence; it has been severely tainted with an influx of rock and pop sounds. Sounds good in theory but seeing the hardened drum n bass fans have no time for rock music it is highly unlikely to appeal to their main audience. In a bid to bridge the gap between rock and dance music Pendulum may find themselves losing their footing and plummeting into the valley below. The sad thing is that ‘In Silico’ promises so much early on but then becomes what is a very ordinary album indeed. Unfortunately having a few bad tracks is compounded even more by the fact the album only consist of ten tracks. ‘Showdown’ introduces listeners to the new Pendulum sound. Straight away you pick up that this is not as dancey as their previous work and it sounds extremely poppy if not somewhat repetitive. ‘Different’ shows some promise even though it sounds like something that could have been taken off an early VAST album and then simply had some drum n bass thrown in on top off. The drastic change midway through the song that ends in a long instrumental piece seems largely out of place and jars badly. ‘9000 Miles’ also seems to borrow from VAST, but unfortunately for Pendulum VAST does this kind of music a million times better. ‘Propane Nightmares’ is the big single off ‘In Silico’ despite it seeming to have a schizophrenic mind of its own. It begins with a heavy brass sample and then delves into long periods of rock music. The change in style continues with ‘Visions’ that is just normal electronica music with no drum n bass in sight. The very pop sounding ‘The Other Side’ also falls flat as it’s lyrics don’t match the music at all… a shame because its opening was terrific. ‘Mutiny’ sees Pendulum try to emulate Hadouken! but they don’t reach anyway knew those heights despite some guitar riffs that would make a lot of rock bands jealous. ‘In Silico’ then picks up a gear with ‘Granite’ and ‘The Tempest’ taking a turn for the dark side and both working extremely well. Sometimes a change of sound for a band works well and sometimes it doesn’t. Unfortunately Pendulum have fallen flat with ‘In Silico’ and in doing so may have isolated themselves from their fan base. Even worse this isn’t the kind of an album that will attract new fans to them either. Pendulum now find themselves at the crossroads. Do they continue with their new weaker sound, or do they return to their roots?