Pendulum vs. Knife Party

Hey guys, hope you all have had a great weekend thus far. I’ve realized that I am a blog post behind for my course requirements so I’ve had to squeeze this one in before the one I put up this coming Tuesday. The post I put up next Tuesday will be the last one for the course and I have still yet to decide if I’m going to continue with the blog after the course. The band I’m featuring this week goes by the name of Pendulum. Pendulum is not only a live band but also a production duo and a DJ act too. It would have been more accurate to say they were a live band and production duo. The band has disbanded due to the production side of Pendulum wanted to pursue a new project called Knife Party and they have achieved success all around the world. Pendulum will not be putting out any more tracks or playing any more live shows with the entire band. Their DJ, El Hornet, still travels around the world playing DJ sets to sold out crowds under the name Pendulum.

Pendulum focused their production primarily towards Drum and Bass. They have also released a couple of tracks that included elements of House and Dubstep. They formed in 2003 in Perth, Australia. Pendulum had always mixed criticism when it came to the impact they’ve had on the drum and bass scene. Some people only got into drum and bass because of Pendulum. Their style of production was very clean and many of their tracks have caught the attention of listeners that never even know what drum and bass was. They in a way helped bring drum and bass to the mainstream which was further pushed when they began doing live band sets at large festivals all over the world showcasing their style of drum and bass. The other portion of the listeners claimed Pendulum nearly killed drum and bass as it was meant to be an underground scene and they were putting out poppy drum and bass tracks.  As I said earlier, the band no longer exists as Rob and Gareth went on to create Knife Party but they have hinted that Pendulum might come back to create a new album in 2014.

The song I’ve picked by Pendulum is called Propane Nightmares. The song is very far from your typical drum and bass song as it feels more of a rock song until the beat drops but then it still sounds like a rock song. It has everything a rock song would; intro, verse, chorus, breakdown, etc… I play the song using a capo barring the 3^rd fret. The entire breakdown I give of the song will be relevant to the capo, so for instance a Gm will be referred to as an Em. The intro follows a progression of Em, B, C, G, B. It then goes into a somewhat of a chorus. I tend to believe this song has 2 ‘choruses’ as I wouldn’t know what else to call this part. The progression for this part is C, G, B, Em, C, G and B. From then it goes into the main hook of the song which is a riff starting from an E (really a G). I do not think my verses are right at all but I follow a Em, G, Em, G, Em, G, C, D pattern. The next part is the other chorus I was talking about and the progression is Em, C, D, Am. The rest of the song is pretty much a repeat of the parts I’ve already mentioned.

As always there’s a cover video I put together below. Please subscribe to the YouTube channel and my Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest pages if you guve have not already! Oh, in the video there’s a slight buzzing at one point because someone sent me a text so I apologize for that. Check back the coming Tuesday for the next post and share the pages with your friends!