I blame Zane Lowe. I used to think he was ok, even if he did come across as a terrible sycophantic fanboy when interviewing artists. Since the god who was John Peel passed away, alternative music on mainstream national radio really wasn't receiving much coverage. Lowe was no Peel, but he did play a fairly eclectic mix of stuff, and gave exposure to bands who no-one else was giving a chance.
But then he began giving disproportionate amounts of airtime to System of a Down's really quite dreadful duo of albums 'Mezmerize' and 'Hypnotize' and Pendulum. I mean, he went bloody nuts for it. I immediately lost all respect for the man, and stopped listening to his show, which increasingly became a platform for pumping truly awful crap of the highest order.
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Such exposure, along with some high-profile festival slots, was, I suspect, a contributing factor to the truly perplexing success of Pendulum's latest album, 'Immersion.' Lowe even does the gushing, excited voiceover on the TV ad. From it, we now have 'Witchcraft.' Yes, it does feature drum 'n' bass beats and a crunching riff. It's also incredibly naff, cornball cack, and four remixes do nothing to improve it. Well, what did you expect? You can't polish a turd.
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