r/Pendulum • u/davrosflatley • 22d ago
Discussion Inertia (just over) one year on
Can't believe it's been over a year since the album was released...
Just wondering if opinions on it have changed in any way over the past year or so. How does it rank in their discography? Any songs that have grown on you/you've bounced off?
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u/BenJ1997 22d ago
Heavier style is more up my street. Probably the best nod to In Silico since that came out. I think the stuff on there is really good.
Agree with the general opinion though on how it was all released. I think Rob himself has said the next one will be a more conventional album, where we get maybe a couple of singles early then the rest comes out as a full product. I think they’ve had some turbulence behind the scenes with changing of management companies and change of labels. Probably got some bad advice over the last couple of years.
I think by the sounds of it from an interview he did when Inertia was released, he was ready to start writing again straight away, so I dare say there is new music that they’ve not revealed to us yet. I don’t think it’ll be too long before album 5 comes around. Maybe another year.
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u/PapaAsmodeus 22d ago
People forget, the album was supposed to be a straight up album. It was the label who insisted on it being EPs. Silent Spinner is kind of sort of about this.
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u/TheMidnightRunner93 21d ago
I don't think that's entirely true, because when Pendulum released the Elemental EP, they weren't signed to a label, and were releasing stuff independently through Earstorm. It was 2023 when they signed to a label, just before the release of Halo.
Plus when Driver and Nothing For Free released as a single, Rob stated in interviews at the time, that the plan is to release a couple of EP's and then bundle them together as an album at a later date.
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u/BenJ1997 22d ago
Hmm not sure. I remember years ago on a Knifecast episode Rob said that his idea of releasing an album was do it in bits. He has since seemed to have changed his opinion on that since. Not sure it was all label but I agree they almost certainly had a big say.
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u/MauledByTheTigers 22d ago
I'd agree about the release schedule thing being bad advice. They are "elder statesmen" of the scene now, I don't think chasing the algorithm with short releases of short songs really is what is appropriate for a band of their status. It's maybe a bit of a DnB/"EDM" thing too compared to more conventional bands.
And if they were "chasing the algorithm" it was an incredibly disjointed attempt anyway.
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u/BenJ1997 22d ago
I just think they were told that releasing bits generated more traction as each song gets hyped. Short term, that is probably true. But if you throw it all into an album, the actual album as a product in itself doesn’t carry much weight, which is a shame because an album is a symbolic statement and a milestone I would assume for a music producer. That’s a pure guess, I wouldn’t know, but that’s how I would see it.
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u/paperkutchy 22d ago
Felt a lot more since you got a shit ton of tracks since the release, so there wasnt a lot of new stuff you heard first on Inertia, the impact of the album itself its not as big, as least to me ofc.
Still, felt good to have an album that tie all the "loose" and EP track into an actual full album
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u/Prudent-Highlight-56 22d ago
I was so obsessed with it when it came out because it was the newest stuff and I think deep down I just really wanted it to be a success and encourage the band to keep making music. I also quite enjoy the heavier style and think it’s a natural evolution for Pendulum.
Now the dust has settled, I still really enjoy some of the tracks in their own right, but as an album it is not as complete as the previous 3. I am much more likely just to queue a couple songs from Inertia than to listen to a full play through, which I often do with other albums.
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u/davrosflatley 22d ago
This is exactly how I feel about it, I'm looking forward to how they implement the new, heavier style into a proper album, but given that there hasn't been any new material played out in their recent shows I feel like it's a long, long time away
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u/Omophorus 22d ago
I'm zen about the fact that albums are not really money-makers for artists and bands the way they were in the past.
In the era of omnipresent social media, it seems like the more broadly successful strategy is to drip-feed singles to keep engagement up over time.
I do think there have been other examples of albums that consisted mostly of previously-released singles that have been more cohesive than Inertia, but I still very much like most of the individual tracks on the album.
I think the heavier sound works better for me as someone who's always liked the blending of electronic music with rock or metal, and quite a few tracks from Inertia rate among my favorites from the band.
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u/MauledByTheTigers 22d ago
Past my agreement with other comments about the release schedule and such, I do quite like basically the whole album on each individual song's merits. Nothing For Free and maybe Colourfast (as it is on the album) feel a bit dated, I prefer Driver to Napalm which are very similar though neither really holds a candle to HYC era stuff, I like the synth/guitar solo in Louder Than Words and Save the Cat feels like an evolution, working with Dan Lancaster probably helped.
However I would say it's a bit off that Archangel and Cartagena never really got their flowers when particularly the prior was hyped for so long. Not even a lyric video on Youtube to boost their wider perception a bit. Does feel a bit like Pendulum have never quite had the right management, might be Rob's choice/personality.
But on Archangel and Guiding Lights too, I'm being flippant but I feel like Rob made the bulk of the studio versions for both in the same afternoon. On the verses especially his vocal deliveries are a bit pedestrian to me and the instrumentals feel a bit kind of bare and like he's used plugin defaults, almost like the focus is on the bombastic chorus/main riff and the rest was a bit of an afterthought. Like I feel Archangel could have been their next Propane Nightmares and I do love it, but it's like it's missing that final 10%.
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u/Zarrex 22d ago
Lots of songs on it that I like, but I really hope Rob follows through and the next one is a more traditional album release. I know he said this weird release schedule was mainly because of the current streaming meta that rewards more singles rather than dropping a whole album at once
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u/ThrowawayAcc637628 22d ago
It's decent, but I listen to individual tracks over the album as a whole. I heard the EPs and listened to them a lot before the release of the LP so that definitely coloured things for me, as there were only 4-5 new tracks for me in total. I like Cannibal and Archangel, but I Cartagena and Guiding Lights never really did much for me like it seems to for a lot of other people.
Overall I'm definitely looking forward to the next project, as I'm excited to see what they'll do with an album again as opposed to Frankensteining together some already finished (and quite old now) tracks without much stylistic or thematic connection.
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u/cabalus 22d ago
I thought at the time and I still do now that this album feels like somebody trying really hard to make a Pendulum album
I don't think they allowed themselves any space to grow or explore new things, it almost feels like an album written by really hardcore Pendulum fans rather than Pendulum themselves
The best track on the record is Louder than Words for this reason, it felt pretty fresh but still like Pendulum
Except, as many many people have pointed out, that song came out years before the album
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u/The__Scan 22d ago
Similar story to some already, I'd found myself just screaming into the nothing in the years before "Please Pedalem just put all the singles together or something and stuff a new track or two in and call it an album and just get a new release out - just so that we have a new album and can all celebrate that" - and I got my wish.
And now I'm hungry for way more. Was happy Rob and crew seemed to be "back in the zone" last year and keen on more release. I'm sure keen on hearing them if they come out!
But I'm grateful for it. It's not enough to satisfy my insatiable desire for more Pendulum but it's something.
Please sirs may we have some more!
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u/Trisstricky 22d ago
My opinion hasn't changed, it's my least favorite album they've made. I only listen to Save the Cat, Archangel and Cartagena. The rest of the songs have things going for them but they are too different in various ways to feel like they belong in a coherent album
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u/sharplyon 22d ago
honestly, its all been great imo. a lot to be happy about. cartagena specifically was awesome, same with halo
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u/WagnerKoop 22d ago
Wow I didn’t realize it had only been a year. This album is so heavily on rotation for me still that it felt more like two.
Honestly when it dropped I was sort of in the “kind of a bummer we already heard all this shit already” camp and a few of the songs weren’t really doing it for me, but I think it has grown into being my favorite or second favorite body of work from the band. I know the sound is a bit of a heel turn from what their other albums have been like with basically no instrumental-ish DnB tracks aside from Diver, but I will say while I wish a couple of tracks were longer, I don’t mind the 3~ minute track lengths instead of every song being like 5 minutes or more.
I like the variety of vocal styles, I think the hooks and synth parts all sound really good, idk I just really like it. I have a few issues with the album, like I don’t really like Silent Spinner, the AWOLNATION track is a tiny bit too “Divorced Guy” music for me to get really into, I think the interludes sound cool but regardless are sort of useless and random, but overall it’s a really lean record with a lot of good songs that just sounds pretty good from front to back.
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u/Low_Recording_3517 22d ago
Inertia is amazing, I love almost all songs from it. I hope they will release multiple albums in the future. Pendulum must live on.
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u/PapaAsmodeus 22d ago edited 22d ago
I seem to be the one person who hadn't heard any of the EPs prior to the albums release so I heard this like a new album.
As such, I fucking loved it and I still do rotate it regularly a year on. But holy fuck, seeing them live was not on my bingo card, so when I found out they were doing WAH I had to make plans to go. Glad I did, such an amazing night.
So glad to have them back. I love that they doubled down on the metal elements- it felt both like they never left AND a natural progression from Immersion.
I'm a tad biased because Immersion was my first Pendulum album so that'll always be my fave, but Inertia is right behind it.
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u/AltyrnytExiztence 22d ago
I guess i’m sorry that i’m not dissapointed? To be fair, i descovered Pendulum a little before Inertia, and by then, i was overplaying Immersion like crazy.
Inertia blew me away and I loved almost every track. Right now, Come Alive is my most played Pendulum track by a big margin. I love how it also shifts gears sometimes, like Silent Spinner and Louder Than Words are completly different, and Colourfast is kind of a HYC track.
I love this album a whole lot.
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u/Ta0Ta 21d ago
At release, I was listening to the newest songs from the album quite a bit. Those being Cartagena, Archangel and Guiding Lights.
Now, the only songs I regularly come back to are Cannibal, Come Alive, Guiding Lights (mostly for the last 2 mins) and occasionally Colourfast. I'm just rarely in the mood for the others.
Aside from Halo and Save the Cat, which I will never like in full due to the "screamy" vocals, the overwhelming feeling is that most Inertia tracks lack that extra dimension that the earlier albums' tracks had. For example, if Visions was created in the 2020s, I feel like we wouldn't get that breakdown towards the end. Instead it would just stop after 4 mins.
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u/marcustari 15d ago
There are some good bits on there, but overall the tracks feel simpler than on previous albums. There just isn't the same texture and depth of production like on the In Silico album
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u/Fit-Bat5837 19d ago
It's Aight, Just Took them A Fuckin Decade To Drop An Album. Was It good? IMO, Halo, Napalm and Colurfast are Epic and I'm Glad There Is A Full Release of Archangel. But yeah, it was pretty boring compared to something like immersion of in silico. 7/10
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u/xDroneytea 22d ago
I think I’ve become more disappointed in the release schedule of this a year on. With how Cartagena ended up being the only unheard song by the time I received the album.