This post is dedicated to a guy I doubt many people are familiar with.
Ghosts n stuff was my first exposure to Rob Swire, but I didn't make the connection until after I looked into Pendulum. Statistically, if you've heard Rob Swire before, it's probably from this song:
I first discovered Pendulum in high school, around 10th or 11th grade. I can't remember exactly how I stumbled upon it, but I discovered the song "The Tempest." It absolutely blew me away. I was pretty heavily into electronic music around this time in my life, an era I remember fondly as "the dubstep years". We called it techno at the time but I haven't heard anyone use that word in about 5 years.
Pendulum has a pretty unique sound in my opinion. It's industrial, it's drum n bass, but what sets it apart is Rob's vocals. They are so silky smooth. The only other artist that reminds me of Pendulum is Celldweller aka Scandroid aka Klayton. The combination of industrial music with nice melodies and vocals just hits right. And if you think you know of an artist with a similar sound, then please reach out and share! And don't say Powerman 5000 lol.
When I was a young lad browsing Pendulum on Youtube, I stumbled upon the music video for Pendulum's remix of The Prodigy song "Voodoo People." This song was nuts and the music video was in the style of a death game! By the way, before there was Squid Game, and before Hunger Games, there was Battle Royale. Expect an article on it at some point. Battle Royale is the OG death game story.
The video for "Showdown" feels like it could be set in the same universe.
Crush was another impactful music video for me. Pendulum's videos tend to be hard hitting, impactful, and almost feeling like you're in a dream world. Everything's a bit washed out and blurry/hazy. All I can say is that Pendelum goes fucking hard and this song and video is a great example.
Watercolour is an incredible song and tell me this video doesn't wanna make you rock tf out.
The Island pt I is a certified banger.
Accurate representation of how listening to Pendulum makes me feel:
In late 2020, around 5-6 months into the pandemic, Pendulum made their climactic return with "Nothing for Free." COVID trigger warning on this video btw.
Apparently, going forward, Rob plans to release small batches of Pendulum tracks instead of full albums, which I think I'm fine with. It gives you more time to appreciate each track. Whenever I listen to an album, any album, there's always some tracks that I end up favoring certain tracks, which get added to my playlists. Some songs are just better, and they can end up overshadowing other songs on an album. Smaller releases let each track breathe.
If you've heard of Knife Party before, it's probably through "Bonfire" or "Internet Friends." Knife Party was Rob's project after Pendulum. "Bonfire" was on Breaking Bad which is pretty crazy. I enjoyed "Internet Friends" because of its spooky vibe. I was working as an actor at a local acclaimed haunted house around the time it came out so I was into spooky stuff I guess.
Honestly, I don't have a lot to say about Knife Party, but I'd be remiss not to at least mention them when talking about Rob Swire.
Outside of those 2 songs, I also enjoyed some songs off their only full album, "Abandon Ship" - mainly the ones that had vocals.
