Pendulum - In Silico

When your debut album brings drum ‘n’ bass to the indie kids and suffers the inevitable purist backlash it can become difficult to maintain your place in the scene. Even more perplexing is how to follow such an album. So Pendulum stumble here. Where 2005’s Hold Your Colour had an epic, almost conceptual, feel to it, In Silico feels flat and somewhat thrown together. Even the title is unfortunate: meaning 'synthetically made' it encapsulates everything that has gone wrong here. Initially they sounded like d’n’b performed by a live band, now they sound like rock music made by a computer. The results are deeply disappointing. Relying on a bizarre mid-tempo beat throughout, the album lacks any sort of dynamic; the low end isn’t low enough and the highs are non-existent. Instead, the vocals are more prominent, the beats are less varied, and altogether the album sorely lacks the organic and exciting feel of their debut. [Neal Parsons]