Pulsar Colony - Cosmic Manifestations - review
Pulsar Colony - Cosmic Manifestations - review
Tracklist
01. The Intoxicating Wine Of The Allfather02. The Inner Core
03. Protection Of The Hammer
04. The Dimensional Wolf Of The Ginnungagap Singularity
05. Drifting Into Oblivion
A review by
Auntie Sahar February 04, 2015
The offspring of Charles Sabo, Pulsar Colony is the type of one man band that sits right on that interesting edge between staying in familiar territory and all out embracing the full insanity of its creator. The project's fourth output, Cosmic Manifestations, is a strange, though satisfying example of how Sabo's songwriting feels both unique and common. On the one hand, the music here is raw and abrasive, with a twangy tone that sounds as if this guy turned the treble on his guitar and bass up to 11 for some extra, mechanical grit (opening track especially). The tempo is mostly upbeat throughout the first half of the album, and occasionally flirts around with more moderate and melodic elements, either as interludes between moments as aggression or as buildups to them. These more moderate moments especially seem to have a pretty good "hook" to them, which, with a bit of refining, could certainly serve to make Pulsar Colony's music extremely catchy.
Pulsar Colony has typically been labeled as "psychedelic black metal," but in regards to Cosmic Manifestations, it's really only the last two tracks here that appear to be really tapping into influences of psychedelia. The opening to that fourth one with the really long title, with its extended sequence of whooshing electronics, slow guitar melody, and clean vocals form Sabo, serves as the perfect build up in mood to the fury that comes later in it, and it's here that these two personalities of the project seem to complement each other most seamlessly. It's both exciting and disappointing in a way, because although the album ends on a high note, it somewhat leaves you wishing that all of it had delved more into this style, and had it, it quite likely would've been engaging from a much wider diversity of perspectives.
Cosmic Manifestations pleases, but depending on what you're expecting out of a one man band, or experimental black metal in general, it could also leave a lot to be desired. Nonetheless, it's really the second half of it that makes the magic here, and demonstrates that Chris Sabo is playing around with some ideas that have the potential to make this project go from "good" to "excellent" in the near future. Room for improvement? Most definitely. But personally, I'd choose an album that gets better as it goes along over one that degenerates any day.
Go manifest yourself... cosmically.
Rating breakdown
| Performance: | 8 |
| Songwriting: | 7 |
| Originality: | 8 |
| Production: | 7 |
Written by Auntie Sahar | February 04, 2015
Comments
Comments:
5
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Posts: 4367
Nice work Apo and its a pretty spot on review. I've already heard the album as it was on Joe' list a while back before he decided to do away with it.  Anyways the album is decent but could've been more varied. Definitely a must-listen for one-man band fanatics and bm fans though. EDIT: Oh and btw, thats a fucking brilliant band name.
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Posts: 3104
Nice review, Che. I'm definitely going to check this one out. No offence but I don't really value your score a lot since I often disagree with you on that.
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Posts: 5989 Written by 3rdWorld on 04.02.2015 at 19:32 I'll admit I can be a bit of an elitist with how bizarre I like one man bands to be, because I kind of have this attitude of "if you have the room to do whatever you want, go all out with it and don't stick to any conventions." It's why I've always preferred projects like The Ruins Of Beverast and Cloak Of Altering over, say, Xasthur and Striborg, for example. Like I said though, this album sits right on that shaky edge between convention and full blown craziness, and while I wish it went more into the latter territory, it's still enjoyable. If it wasn't for those last two tracks though I probably would've scored it considerably lower (or not reviewed it at all  )
---- I am the Magician and the Exorcist. I am the axle of the wheel, and the cube in the circle. “Come unto me” is a foolish word: for it is I that go. ~ II. VII
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Posts: 5989 Written by Erik M. on 04.02.2015 at 21:42 None taken, we have considerably different tastes. Anyway it's not so much the score that matters as much as the content of the review does anyway. A score's just my way of saying how well or how bad an album stands against other music in its similar vein, and I've been using N/A more and more lately for albums I don't think can really be compared to anything else.
---- I am the Magician and the Exorcist. I am the axle of the wheel, and the cube in the circle. “Come unto me” is a foolish word: for it is I that go. ~ II. VII
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