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PENDULUM "IMMERSION" (EAR STORM/ATLANTIC RECORDS) |
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What a big, bright, artfully garish, swanky bucket of beats and brazen melodies "Immersion" is. It goes without saying (i.e. without the too-tired trip about the title being as good as a short review schtick of which we reviewers are from time to time guilty) the album title is prophetic, but it shouldn't go without saying that Pendulum out-Crystal-Methods Crystal Method at its own game by adding some upgrades. Take that bright neon fuzz big eyes wide psyche crackle burr, and the swaggering beats and turn 'em up a notch. Pendulum files in full-tilt drum and bass backbone to roll along the enormous dance-trip psy-textured melodies, and ripples like a blacklight poster black hole, undulating like a huge metaphysical orchid of sound, thrum BUMP bzzzz wow! And though I've heard the tactic elsewhere, kudos to the trick up Pendulum's sleeve on "Immersion" - the one where they swing grooves from drum-n-bass kickdancing to four-on-the-floor rollin' rollin' steady. At least one other dnb artist I know of shakes up the beats in such a way, but given that Pendulum is more than just dnb and put all the parts together is greater than the sum of its parts, and given that its such a trip to flip to four-floor thumping when you've finally got used to the idea that, yes, those are, in fact, dnb grooves underneath all that shiny big beat glitter, a new method in town making new use of old sounds - given all that (and more) - it should come as no surprise that you're up against a new context to hear that skitter switch over to 4/4 pumps in the middle of all this WOW. In other words, half the fun is listening to all these elements come together .......-- review by Kristofer Upjohn
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