SONIC PULSAR

Artist's Website
Contact Artist
Amadora, Portugal

Available CDs

Warranties and Disclaimers

"If Hugo Flores had already caught my attention with his Atlantis album, this new project Sonic Pulsar has really fully satisfied 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.
Some softer Neo-Prog sounds are present in Old Man…  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 Lourenco, Prognosis

"The CD sleeve says that among other things, multi-instrumentalist Hugo Flores takes care of … drum sampling! Uh oh – that’s a red flag for any self-respecting prog fan!  Sonic Pulsar, from Portugal, is a 2-man collaboration of multi-instrumentalists Hugo Flores and Carlos Mateus, with occasional collaboration of Nuno Ferreira on bass guitar.  So - a two-man band, with fake drums and lots of electronica. Hmmm – this is going to be a long day.

Then the CD starts spinning and – whoa – play that again? And again!  Is there such a genre as “Spacey-Metal?” There is now. (No, not “Space Metal”.) Playing The Universe is very melodic, with lots of solid crunchy sounds, led by an unusual crossover of metal-style lead guitar, and ambient sounds. Imagine early-era Yanni crossed with Dream Theater. (No, really, use your imagination!) Symphonic, not quite metal, fairly progressive, and the strong guitar and piano work keep it well grounded. Although several tracks feature interesting changes in rhythm and tone the music isn’t overly complex, but it is very melodious, with great hooks and tonal variety.

And speaking of tonal variety, here’s an important lesson for aspirant prog musicians: At Sea Of Tranquility we review many, many albums by one and two man projects. So many of them are great musicians, but after the first few tracks, the music sometimes sounds – frankly – monotonous. So you yet-to-be-discovered prog musicians – here’s today’s assignment: (1) Study this music. (2) Listen to the very varied tones across the whole album, and notice that no two tracks are the same. (3) Listen to the guitar solos. Most are reasonably aggressive but – see how all of them are well contained within the ambience of each piece? (4) Do you hear the many voices in the guitars. (5) Go out and emulate!

The drums are well programmed – sometimes sounding remarkably good, and at other times, frankly annoying. There is no replacement for the carbon-based drum machine, (i.e. a human!) The only other drawback is in the vocals. Hugo Flores has a good voice, and his delivery and the tunes are consistent with the music. The lyrics are … okay, but very ESL and Hugo sings them with a heavy accent. Luckily, this is not song-oriented music, and the vocals never dominate.

Playing The Universe is well composed, the playing is out of the top drawer, and the production quality is good. This is an album you could play again and again. Very enjoyable.  Now imagine Sonic Pulsar with a real drummer, and fronted by a DC Cooper or a Damien Wilson. That would rate a full 5 stars out of 5!" - Duncan Glenday, Sea of Tranquility