Band:	Isaurian
Album:	The Pulsing Rush
Style:	Doom metal, Post-metal
Release date:	October 25, 2024
A review by:	AndyMetalFreak

01. Heart Like A Curse
02. Godlike
03. Carved Earth
04. Pale Blue Dot
05. Primal Life
06. Great Hunger
07. Murmurations

Isaurian continues The Pulsing Rush of post-metal and doomgaze, this time offering their deepest insight into our human nature yet.

Isaurian is a Brazilian post-metal quintet with doom and shoegaze influences that formed back in 2017 by Hoanna Aragão (vocals), Jorge Rabelo (vocals/guitars), and Guilherme Tanner (guitars), before later arrivals Roberto Tavares (drums) and Renata Marim (bass) joined the fold. The band released full-length debut Chains Of Blue in 2020, 3 years after their establishment, before returning 2 years later with their sophomore effort Deep Sleep Metaphysics. These 2 albums have definitely set a high benchmark. Certainly proving they aren't messing around, the band returns after another 2-year gap to present their 3rd full-length offering The Pulsing Rush, which, judging on recent form, should prove to be a more than solid effort. But does it succeed in doing so, or even surpass the quality of the two previous albums?

The Pulsing Rush definitely lives up to its title, by taking listeners on a pulsating 40-minute voyage (surpassing the remarkably short runtime of Deep Sleep Metaphysics by a mere 5 minutes) of love, death, desire and longing, exploring the truest feelings of human nature and sonic expression. This emotive and captivating 7-tracked journey begins with "Heart Like a Curse", which continues in the style of the band's previous work, offering a combination of hypnotic doomgaze and powerful post-metal instrumentation, driven mostly in mid-tempo by a heavy tone and pulsating rhythm section. The highlighted element, however, remains in the passionate clean singing vocal style which alternates between Hoanna Aragão and Jorge Rabelo.

However, Hoanna's vocal performance on the following song "Godlike", even surpasses that of the opener. You can easily describe her passionate angelic singing as goddess-like, especially as they accompany the soft gaze instrumentation in such a wonderfully emotive fashion. Jorge Rabelo then leads the vocal duties on the next track "Carved Earth", performing both harsh and soft doomy wails. "Carved Earth" is not only the longest song featured at over 7 minutes, but it is also one of the band's most well-crafted to date, mostly following a structural pattern of powerful, tense, post-metal build-ups that unleash heavier doom sections with the powerful vocal performance at the forefront.

Breaking things up midway is a short, emotive, hypnotic instrumental titled "Pale Blue Dot", which allows for a momentary, thought-provoking reflection before the journey continues down the path of alternating styles between post-metal, doom, and shoegaze. "Primal Life" is typical post-metal for the most part, consisting of some powerful, intense build-ups that lead to some of the heaviest instrumentation on the album yet. However, it's Hoanna's powerful doom wails that simply steal the show once again. "Great Hunger" follows in a slightly catchier and more upbeat manner, featuring some of the most melodically-driven guitar work so far, but it's the melancholic midsection, driven by light synths and mesmerizing gentle guitar work that for me is the song's main highlight. One thing you'll notice is the minimalistic instrumentation; it's not the most varied structurally, and it's certainly not the most upbeat, rapid, or neck-breaking album you'll hear, but, despite this, there's a constant tension and hypnotizing tranquillity that remains throughout. In addition, you'll also notice synths haven't been a primary feature up until now, but the final song "Murmurations" does contain a heavier dose of synth usage, as well as piano keys that definitely makes up for that.

In their short 7 years, Isaurian have established themselves as one of the most emotive and touching metal bands out there, doing so through a mesmerizing combination of post-metal, doom and shoegaze. The Pulsing Rush sees the band venture even further into this exceptional modern metal category, offering more emotional depth and insight into human nature this time than ever before, whilst pulling off some of their most impressive performances yet (the vocals in particular).