:: SONIC PULSAR ::
: Playing the Universe Reviews :

Review by Radio Ghosty

"Sonic Pulsar has some serious chops on their side in their debut on our playlist. Definitely enjoyable music." - Radio Ghosty

Review by Bill Bruedigam

Unique, syncopation, abstract, pure rock! Let me focus on "Dreamscape," from the Hugo Flores/Carlos Mateus compilation; "Playing the Universe" is without a doubt one of the most unique pieces of music I have ever experienced. The song does not let you simply listen, it takes you with it. By "take," I don't mean figuratively, I mean literally! The song controls, it does not go where you think it is going to go at each turn, it twists and spirals as if a meteor cast into space that has not yet found it direction. And do NOT even think for a moment that this is a downside to this song, this is the upside, this is what makes this song unique and seriously powerful in its easy fluid way. Syncopation, a word I do not use lightly, and normally only use for percussionists, fits this song very well. I know syncopation can be adapted to use with piano, guitar, etc., but I have never heard it done so supremely. Abstract? Yes, that goes easily, hand and hand with syncopation, though not an absolute, but here it has joined hands and works so well that it does not even seem to be abstract. This is a song for "seasoned" music listeners. Though it would still be enjoyed by even the most pop of pop listeners, the seasoned listener will undoubtably find themselves impressed to say the least. Hugo is a serious guitarist, unique in every way. From Portugal, which create no language barrier since his instruments doing all of his talking for him, he can be enjoyed by all, and will be. Spiraling, there it comes again. I am listening to the CD while writing this, and just love the work he is doing here, and I am sure you will too. With 3 independently produced CDs out there, if you like rock, and you like guitar, you will love them all. Taken from www.thirdroad.com/indieriver/vol1/hugoflores.htm

Review by Nuno Lourenço from PROGNOSIS

"If Hugo Flores had already caught my attention with his Atlantis album, this new project Sonic Pulsar has really fully satisfy me. The vocals are better and tremendously consistent with the music, showing the natural evolution of this young but fantastic musician. The songs are also constructed with more depth and a true progressive understanding making me wonder what Sonic Pulsar will achieve next, if they keep evolving like this! The album opens with powerful and hard-edged guitar riffing and soloing. But Radio Silent does not stick in those grungy sounds. As the music unfolds it grows into something innovating and mutating. The true progressive sensibility of Hugo Flores is well demonstrated here. Though in its heavier suit. Dreamscape changes the play set, as it starts with a calm ambience that may remind you of Bjorn Lynne's The Gods Awaken or even, in another angle, Scott Mosher. This is a very tight and secure song, with very competent programming in what concerns the drum machine and exquisite keyboard playing. The guitar solo is aggressive but molded inside this ambient capsule, demonstrating the strange yet effective duality of this talented musician. Dead Flowers further explores the aforementioned duality, as the vocals and the guitar riffing are generators of a heavy structure, but the song does not sound metallic. I wouldn’t call it prog metal; it's more like hard prog with a very acute personal view of the combination between melodic and ethereal keyboards with edgy distorted guitars. Wasted is a sort of a ballad, Hugo Flore's way. It is not a mellow track for it mixes (again) some harder parts, but it slides quite easily. Again, the guitar soloing is awesome. The 8 minutes that the song lasts are a showdown in changing rhythms and music direction. The band's name song is guitar oriented but in a melodic way. Its an instrumental track where Hugo explores his guitar abilities to the extreme. It sounds reminiscent of Vai's or Satriani's kind of approach. In I have this stone, Hugo returns to his Atlantis sound. The vocals are very emotional and the song is more alternative. The haunting keyboard work of Carlos Mateus is worthy of praising. Almost unnoticed but complementing with style the final result. In slow motion turns another great page in this album. The cared mix between Space, New-Age and Neo-Prog is great. The calmness is contagious and the way the instruments enter the play can really surprise you. This is one of the best songs in the album. Detailed, aired and ear candy. This is not a jam session has a light and quickly forgotten jazzy feeling to it when it starts but it's really all about the guitar virtuosos of Hugo. The music starts with ambient sounds and evolves to prog-metal guitar soloing. This is pure power that seemed to be screaming to get out. Perspective is the perfect demonstration of its title...the combination of different perspectives that populate this artists imagination. Even if the song is less strong than most the others in this album, it shows the different playgrounds where Sonic Pulsar expand their sound. Made of Dreams is a quiet interlude in form of a ballad. The keyboards are, again, very well played and the vocals can really grab the emotion by its fingertips. Beautiful. The album title song brings back to surface the inventive side. Again the interplay is excellent and the guitar work flawless. Positive waves circle all around this instrumental song for it is uprising. Excellent stuff really. The last song closes the album in style. It occasionally reminds me of solo Bruce Dickinson pseudo-ballads (but only for split seconds). The song is harmonious and with a very distinctive melodic sense. Hugo's personal signature is very strong all over the album and he is really revealing himself to be a gifted guitar player and a enlighten progressive composer. The progger can put his ears with confidence here and the progressive labels should pay attention to this project and the obvious potentiality of future works. The talent is here for anyone to take notice." Nuno Lourenço 25.03.2002 - Read it here!

Jerry L.

"Imagine Dream Theater reduced to one member who, along with one assistant, does everything. Well, that is exactly what Sonic Pulsar's album sounds like, and more. We start with a heavy rock metal number called RADIO SILENCE which introduces the listener to the guitar, bass and synth playing of one HUGO FLORES. Not only that, which is already a lot, but also his amazing voices (lead and backing vocals in different tones). Following this is a more relaxed and spacey/new agey piece, DREAMSCAPES, which reminded me of Yanni at his beginnings. SENDING DEAD FLOWERS gets you back again to what this album is all about and is followed by a lovely heavy Progressive Rock ballad, WASTING, again showing the composer's immense talents on the guitar, bass and vocals. The drumming is done throughout the album using samples and sounds great. Track 5 is another beautiful ballad, complemented by the acoustic guitar of Carlos Mateus, and is followed by an instrumental track that combines excellent guitar (ac./el) and keyboard playing. IN SLOW MOTION is yet another Progressive Rock ballad and is followed by a third instrumental combining spacey keyboards and heavy guitar. NEW PERSPECTIVE combines both the ballad and heavy Progressive Rock that is this album. The final three pieces are as well indicative of the immense talend Mr. FLORES posesses. To say that this album does not remind the listener of Dream Theater would be a lie; however, upon reading that the entire idea started out as a jamming session between HUGO FLORES & CARLOS MATEUS makes it all the more amazing. A must for any good Progressive collection. To get it, just e-mail the artist at http://hugoflores.com" Jerry L. - Read it here!

Progressor

"Prolusion. "Playing the Universe" is the debut of the Portuguese project Sonic Pulsar led by multi-instrumentalist Hugo Flores. The guys are already about to release their second album called "Out of Place", the line-up on which, apart from Hugo and Carlos, features Nuno Ferreira on bass guitar. Synopsis. One of the most important and popular sub-genres of Prog, Classic Space Rock subdivides into three categories. These are Electronic Space Rock, which is the 'department' of Tangerine Dream etc, Space-Fusion, the brightest representatives of which are Gong and Clearlight, and Symphonic Space Rock / Space Metal with Eloy and Hawkwind being the most respectable bands playing in this style. Well, Sonic Pulsar is from the latter 'camp', and some parallels between the band's music and that of Hawkwind and Eloy (in the 1980s) can be drawn. Here however, I must make a reservation that the said comparisons are quite relative, because the music presented on "Playing the Universe" is definitely original. At least, it doesn't contain any direct influences. I am generally not used to filling a review with the names of 'comparable' bands and performers (it is by no means too much trouble to find plenty of them for each review), and it would be especially erroneous in the case of Sonic Pulsar. I'll only note that the music of this project is more complex and interesting than that on most of the albums Hawkwind released in the 1980s, not to mention those in the 1990s. The 72-minute "Playing the Universe" features thirteen tracks, almost all of which, including the only instrumental piece Dreamscapes, are about Classic Symphonic Space Rock with either elements or the bits of Space Metal. The exclusions include:) the opening track of the album Radio Silent, the loudest and heaviest composition here representing an excellent Space Metal, and Old Man's Tale (5), which is somewhat of an Art-Space Rock ballad with virtuosi solos of acoustic guitar being at the helm of arrangements. Along with those of electric guitar, bass, and synthesizer, solos and passages of acoustic guitar and the parts of piano play a significant role in the arrangements on the album and are present on most of the tracks here. All vocals are in English and are OK, but purely instrumental arrangements cover about two thirds of the album." Vitaly - Read it here!

Music Extreme

Sonic Pulsar is a pure progressive metal machine whose music is full of arrangements and melodies. There is multiplicty of changes within each of the compositions of this album, and that is one of the reasons why we labeled Sonic Pulsar´s music as "progressive". The guitar sound is distorted adding that metal edge that the music here has, plus there are plenty of keyboards and orchestration that are the spirit of Sonic Pulsar´s music. This is not another Dream Theater clone....Sonic Pulsar has its own identity in the riffs used, in Hugo Flores vocals and in the acoustic guitar passages. The drums are programmed here giving the music a different, more mechanical feeling that contrasts heavily with the rest of the instruments.The sound of the recording is really clean as this style of music demands to let all the arrangements be fully audible. Pure progressive music with original ideas. Music Extreme - Read it here!

BABYBLAUE - Seiten (only in German)

“Radio Silent” brettert mit bestem Progmetal ähnlich Threshold los. Der Song hat ordentlich Drive, ist nicht übermäßig komplex, sondern legt Wert auf das melodische Zusammenspiel von Gitarren und Synthesizern. Hugo Flores entlockt hier wie bei anderen Songs des Albums seiner Gitarre im Solo allerlei singende Töne. Schön gemacht. Der nächste Song. „Dreamscapes“. Aus den Fernen des All erheben sich Echolaute, sphärische Engelsmusik und eine hingetupfte Klaviermelodie bis die Drums einsetzen, die schließlich vollends für eine spacige Ambient-Atmosphäre sorgen. Progmetal? Was soll das sein? Zwischen diesen beiden Polen – melodiösem Progmetal und spacigem Ambient – entfalten sich nun die folgenden 11 Songs. „Sending Dead Flowers“ etwa wirkt gleich wie die perfekte Synthese beider Stilrichtungen. Diese Synthese gelingt allerdings nicht immer so gut. „Wasting“ stellt die traditionelle Metal-Ballade mit etwas schwülstigem Gesang dar, „New Perspective“ erinnert mich an die 70-er-Jahre Free. Besser kommt das ebenfalls in der Gesangsmelodie überzeugende „In slow motion“ irgendwo zwischen Pink Floyd und Vince Guaraldi. Und obwohl Hugo Flores eigentlich kein schlechter Progmetal-Sänger ist, gefallen mir die Instrumentals besonders gut. Neben dem erwähnten „Dreamscapes“ etwa das irgendwie krautig-rockende „Sonic Pulsar“. Einwände könnten dagegen erhoben werden, dass keine echten Drums verwendet werden, aber das Drum-Programming wirkt keinesfalls steril und passt sowieso gut zum spacigen Sound des Duos. Störender empfinde ich eher den gelegentlichen Hang zu etwas sehr süßlichen Keyboardsounds. Insgesamt aber stellt Playing the Universe einen einigermaßen originellen und durchaus überzeugenden Stil-Mix dar. BABYBLAUE - Seiten - Read it here!