They narrowly missed going straight to the top of yesterday's album chart, but most people have yet to hear of Pendulum. Or rather, most people over the age of 20. That the bouncers outside Brixton Academy demanded fans hold up IDs alongside their tickets was odd for a gig that didn't begin until midnight, but not nearly as strange as the sight of kids with colourful Mohicans standing next to ravers in DayGlo gear and ski masks and a gaggle of girls in bikinis.

Formed in Perth, Australia, but based in Britain since the release of their 2005 debut, Hold Your Colour, Pendulum are best described as a modern-day Prodigy - a band with a singer and an MC, who mix processed beats with rock played on live instruments. Except that Pendulum's beats are drum'n'bass and their rock veers within an ear-splitting notch of nu-metal. That they are set to play festivals as diverse as Creamfields and Download this summer is an indication of how well they do both on their new album In Silico.

Not that critics particularly care for them. Many have deemed In Silico unlistenable and, in truth, anyone beyond adolescence would need to be in a furious mood to sit through more than three tracks of the album at home. Live, however, Pendulum are a far more intriguing proposition. At the start, the laser show and low, rumbling bass had fans jumping, screaming and punching the air with glow sticks before the black-clad quintet emerged from a sea of dry ice. The songwriter, singer and principal producer Rob Swire, spent much of the first third of the set switching between guitar - despite there being two full-time guitarists - and keyboards at the back, producing stabby, rave sounds reflected in the sweaty crowd's furious moves poached from an acid house party circa 1989. A boisterous rapper called MC Verse led the band through the slinky old number Fasten Your Seatbelt and the super-speedy Another Planet, plus Pendulum's remix of the Prodigy's Voodoo People, by which time several fans had removed their tops - and not just the blokes.

The recent Top Ten single Propane Nightmares proved Pendulum's musical progression by blending orchestral rock with Swire's almost ambient vocals, before breaking for a folky moment, then descending into drum'n'bass mayhem. It was an extraordinary prog-esque epic that may well dominate festival season and could just attract some more mature fans.

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