It’s a sad week in music. A few days ago, popular EDM/Drum and Bass group Pendulum has decided to call it quits. The band, which consisted of members from both Australia and Britain, was formed in 2002, and were pioneers in the EDM genre at the time. Pendulum’s style can be described as Drum and Bass mixed with elements of alternative rock and (later on) dubstep, yielding a very industrial/metal sound. Over the band’s three album tenure (Hold Your Colour, In Silico, and Immersion), several songs from each musical style emerged, adding to Pendulum’s reputation for great EDM tunes.

***

For example, “Streamline” from their 2007 album Hold Your Colour is more melodic than most, with an entranced bassline and a hypnotic singer that croons to the beat:

This song, “The Island, Pt.2″ (probably one of their more famous bits) features the hard-hitting dubstep that is taking over in mainstream today:

With this type of versatility and musical talent, it’s hard to believe that the band are calling it quits. However, according to founding member Rob Swire in an interview with ABC reporter triple J:

“We’d been doing Pendulum for ten years and that’s a pretty long time to be doing anything, I guess. We were still playing tracks like Blood Sugar that we made when we were 18 or 19. To still be doing that 10 years later, it just felt like time to do something else.”

By “something else” Swire might be referring to a little side project called Knife Party that has been big on the scene lately, with songs like “Internet Friends” and “Antidote” blowing up the Internet and DJ sets worldwide. Knife Party, which is composed of Rob Swire and Pendulum bandmate Gareth McGrillen, recently began touring the United States, and are set to hit Europe soon. “We’re having too much fun with this project,” Swire says. “It’s also great because Pendulum towards the end sort of felt like we were doing it because we had to and that’s never a fun way to do music. Whereas Knife Party is pretty much solely us doing what we want to, and if no one likes it we don’t care.”

Swire and McGrillen performing as their new group, Knife Party.

So out with the Drum and Bass, and in with the Dubstep/House. How’s that for a change of the times?

Hopefully this is not the absolute last we hear of Pendulum, but with the evolution of such an emerging genre, who knows if there will even be room for their type of sound in the near future. At least we have 10 solid years of music to enjoy while we contemplate the return.