The first thing that struck me about this album was that it came to me with a press release completely in German, not unusual for a German band I suppose but to send it out to an English speaking site all in German actually made me want to play it! (Please don’t think that will work twice!)
What we have here is ‘Jazz-Metal’ (or so it says) but in reality to me this just sounds like the sort of instrumental album we’d get from Satriani with a bit more shred! Sure there are jazzy breakdowns in there like the horns on ‘Bellatrix’ but in truth if it’s rather enjoyable and has the sort of banks of keys and compositional values Klaus Schulze is known for (we reviewed a rather grand live extravaganza by him a few years back).
With a string of guests and more dabs of jazziness ‘Pulsar’ is the album that those that love Rock instrumental albums will love, me I find them rather challenging and have to be in the right mood to get into them and after a while kind of lose sight of the individual tracks in the ‘whole’ experience.
Excellent musicianship, progressive, interesting and challenging compositions, what’s not to like?
