Band:	Quasar
Album:	Tales Of Arcana
Style:	Progressive black metal
Release date:	2007
A review by:	Raiden

01. Celestial Summoning Of Nocturnal Illumination
02. Wisdom Of Afar
03. Eternal Ancient Rhythms
04. Photosphere
05. Unforseen Forces
06. Aftermath (Unforseen Forces Part 2)
07. Evil-ution
08. The Discipline Of Questioning
09. Atlantean Ruins Lost To The Sea
10. To Travel Through Space And Time In Search Of The Unknown
11. A Speck Of Impurity In The Crucible Of The Universe (Part 1: The Birth Of Ideas)
12. Gathered In Stone Circles To Worship The Sun
13. Memories Of The Transit Of Halley's Comet
14. Funeral Fog At Dawn

Style: Progressive Black Metal
Country: Australia
Label: Plague Promotions
Length: 55.34
Recorded: Jan 2005 - March 2006

Line-up:
Baraath - Guitars, bass, bow, slide, mandolin, bodrhan drum, ngari drum, wood block, tambourine, cymbals, vocals
Qazim: - Drums, vocals
D.M.J. 2K5 - Bass, guitars


Some albums you hear are full of good moments. Some mostly contain bad parts. With Quasar's debut album, it's a bit of a mixed bag. Maybe I'm not being fully clear though, it's not really lots of awful stuff and some okay features, it's an album that progresses through reasonableness while giving you these highlights here and there all the way through. The band plays a fairly hard to categorise type of metal too. The best description would probably be Progressive Black Metal although the vocals are a sort of half and half Death Metal growl and Black Metal rasp.

As I say, the album moves along, all the time being fairly reasonable. That's the main downside of this album though. It's a nice listen, but it doesn't catch you the whole way. While there are some stand-out parts, and stand out songs, some songs can only be classified as nice general listening music and nothing more. It's like a musical flat bit of land with hills springing up here and there.

How about the good moments though? The moments that save this album from absolute mediocrity. Well there's some nice variety here and there, sometimes the Progressive side will shine through (Blackened as it is) and there will be some acoustic break down, connecting the song through some less extreme and sometimes soulful moments. The song "Gathered In Stone Circles To Worship The Sun" displays both sides of Quasar excellently. It has howling background vocals, heavy and also more melodic guitars, slower Doomy drumming and some cleverly placed double kick drumming (even though this kind of drumming is played a bit sloppily on this song and at other times). The solo-esque wailing guitar sections in this song are worth it on their own. Simply beautiful moments in a purely excellent song.

So I think the positive elements of this album should allow it access to one's disc player from time to time. The blend of metal is actually quite a good one, so most of the album is fairly good to listen to. And your persistence will be mainly rewarded as you discover those gems here and there along your musical journey.