Pendulum - 'Save the Cat'
Giving the first taste of their long-awaited fourth album, Inertia, the thrilling charge of ‘Save The Cat’ is an unhinged industrial screamo anthem and a welcome return for Pendulum.
It's been 15 years since Pendulum last delivered a full-length album, 2010's stadium-shaking Immersion. In the intervening years, the Australian drum & bass pioneers have dipped their toes back in the water with EPs and collaborative singles, but the promise of a new LP, Inertia, feels less like a calculated comeback and more like a reckless recalibration. And if ‘Save The Cat’ is any indication, the band, particularly frontman Rob Swire, has been through the wringer.
The track began with a familiar Pendulum bravado, a surging synth motif hinting at their past anthems – until it doesn’t. This isn't the slick, polished electro-rock of their In Silico era, but then again why should it be? ‘Save The Cat’ is a snarling, unkempt beast, stripped down to its bare, metallic bones. Swire's vocals, often the melodic anchor in their more commercial endeavors, are instead stretched to a raw screamo-esqe limit.
Lyrically, Swire has stated the song emerged from a period of "self-questioning and frustration," born from two breakups. Similar to the emotion that inspired the song, the production, co-helmed by Swire and Owen Charles, is relentlessly heavy. Their signature breakbeat assault is present, but they have switched up their formula and twisted it into something more abrasive and less immediately accessible than their heyday.
Ultimately, this is what makes ‘Save The Cat’ is a welcome, albeit jarring, reintroduction to Pendulum. It’s a testament to a band unafraid to confront their own internal turbulence through their music, even if it means rewiring the very genre that once defined them. It should hardly be a surprise coming from the band who dramatically denounced their Reading & Leeds Festival 2024 appearance the last time they would play mosh-pit starter and fan favourite ‘Tarantula’ live. It's not a crowd-pleaser in the vein of ‘Propane Nightmares’, but it hints at a darker journey on Inertia—one can only guess the destination.
Words by Oliver Evans
