"[2] Upon its release, "Pendulum" received acclaim from music critics, who noted its complex production and Twigs's vocals.
Patric Fallon of Pitchfork selected it as "Best New Track", writing that "[n]ot since last year's bewitching 'Water Me' [...] has the London singer released a single as dedicated to nuance and will-o'-the-wisp sublimity as [...] 'Pendulum'."
However, Fallon also noted the differences between the two tracks, stating: "Where 'Water Me' and 'Pendulum' diverge in their style and substance is in the latter's resounding chorus and bridge, when the music's detached and capricious elements finally converge into a hook that plays like a hymn to the patron saint of melancholic desire.
"[3] Brenna Ehrlich of MTV News called the track "a spare kind of thing hung with pattering drums—laid over a deeper, thrumming heartbeat—and laced with her ethereal, overlapping vocals.
[5] A photo from the video set was first released on 29 July 2014, which depicts FKA Twigs hanging from the ceiling by her hair.