Amplifier

It's been a long time since I've been affected by an album in this way. Pendulum has worked a path through my blood stream, setting up outposts in far reaching arteries and organs and seems now ready to slowly open me up as it gently kneads the brain, sending it's signals to the hand that holds this pen that writes these words. What witchery is this?!

Pendulum comes hard on the heels of last year's debut, The Onus Of Sand, and is a seriously focused record that plays out like a novel. The psychedelic references that were all over the debut are here again on the likes of Holy Ground and The Seed - a beautiful jazz epic of Doors-like mysticism. But this time, the soul of the man that possessed the music of TrinityRoots, is right out front, and permeates the whole of this record, brushing Pendulum in much deeper colours.

The album begins like the dawn, with a series of sustained brass notes that stir and drone and hover like mist, before a pounding tom rhythm sets up the onrushing, Nature Of Man. This steam train of a song introduces the album's narrative - war, humanity and the perils of material gain, amongst other themes. A horn line signals the beginning of track three, Corrupt Demeanour, a song built around two repeated piano chords that march in an unusual timing, reminiscent of Radiohead's Pyramid Song, before giving way to first single Mary, a tune that shows just how much Warren Maxwell knows about crafting a good pop song and what a great ear for melody he has.

Elsewhere there is the lovely acoustic Next Time, the gloriously throbbing title track and the chanting inferno of War, which bends in and around itself like the end of The Beatles, I Want You (She's So Heavy). The album closes with Peaceful Man, an optimistic end chapter that seems to float upwards on some beautiful slide guitar. It's the kind of record that can teach and nurse you at the same time if you let it under your skin, which makes it my album of the year and a more complete record you won't find.

Mr President