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Originally from Australia, Pendulum is now coming stateside after earning heavy popularity in the UK. The band mixes house and trance music with a variety of styles including alternative rock to create a type of music that's never been heard before. The band's latest release "Immersion" came out in the UK in 2010, but we're getting it here in the U.S. in 2011 by way of Atlantic Records. The album itself is not terrible and it deserves a listen if you're a fan of bands like The Prodigy, but that's really not when they're at their best. Rob Swire does vocals for Pendulum and he has a very cool voice for softer/moodier music. When he busts into that style on songs like "Witchcraft" it's very cool to listen to. When Rob's voice doesn't do much more than add detail to a heavily synthed loop then it doesn't work nearly as well. And that is Pendulum's main flaw. There are songs on "Immersion" that are a good 90 seconds longer than they need to be because the same synthesizer loop plays over and over again. There's no movement to the music and it makes it too cold to get passionate about. That coldness is of course added to the heavy house/drum loop influence and it really makes "Immersion" suffer in lots of places. Pendulum is a very cool band, I will give them that, and when you listen to the music you can't help but be impressed with the songs themselves. "Witchcraft" is a fantastic song and a track that everyone can like. And even when the synthesizers are cranking out massive sounds... the structure of the music could hold up across any instrument, and that's really impressive. But for all that you can be impressed with it still comes back to that lack of warmth. Their live show is what they've earned their credibility from and that's awesome but they're albums can't be listened to casually and that makes an album like "Immersion" a hard album to listen to. "Immersion" is a decent piece of music, it's just not for everyone.