ALBUM REVIEW: Sju Pulsarer – Mitochondrial Sun

Leaving a band can be a difficult decision for a musician at the best of times, but leaving a band that you formed three decades ago and starting fresh, in a completely different style to the one you have made your name in, must in incredibly daunting. This is the situation that faced former DARK TRANQUILITY guitarist NIKLAS SUNDIN when he parted ways with the band earlier this year. Luckily, his new band, MITOCHONDRIAL SUN, is great in its own right.

The band’s debut, self-titled album, came out in February, and proved to be a brilliant collection of dark ambient and electronic tracks, far removed from the melodic death metal that he is known for. The band’s second album, Sju Pulsarer, takes the excellent foundations its predecessor laid down, and injects a liberal dose of black metal into the sound, resulting in an impressively atmospheric and beguiling record.

Pulsar 1 sets a bleak, foreboding tone, with glorious ambient moments and incredibly slick guitars creating an intense, grandiose feel. The percussion really adds to the aggression, with the electronic beats adding an urgent, energetic depth that works really well, demanding the listeners attention. Pulsar 2 opens with a clean guitar motif, quickly giving way to a speed-driven slab of black metal with a generous helping of melodicism. The frenetic nature of the drums is carried forward, but its the guitars that take centre stage here.

Pulsar 3 carries the black metal influences forward, with chaotic drums, hair-raising guitar lines and epic keyboard sections helping to give this song a massive, awe-inspiring approach that is fantastic, making this song incredibly memorable as a result. Pulsar 4, with its slightly darker bent, has a focused sound, with some excellent riffs peppering this fierce piece of music with plenty of catchy flourishes. It’s one of the album’s shorter offerings, but it packs a solid punch, leaving an impression.

Pulsar 5 utilises spacey keyboards, complementing the cacophonous undercurrent of the guitars and the primal drum hooks, and adding another intriguing element that injects a little bit of variety into the records sound. Pulsar 6 has a thicker sound, not just in terms of the approach of the guitars and drums, but also the dominant dark ambient influences that come to the fore in perhaps the most overt way it has on the album. The keyboards hang high in the mix, often taking over the sound, lending a great dose of electronic and industrial music to proceedings that adds lots of character to this otherwise subdued affair.

Pulsar 7 captures a lot of the intensity that has informed many of the tracks, combining this with a polished guitar tone and magnificent keys, giving this a crisp, futuristic sound, allowing this side of the album’s sound to contribute just as many hooks as the guitar, interweaving the two styles and ultimately turns this song into the most eclectic on the album. Noll och Intet arguably has the most distinctive sound, with the music standing out just as much as its title. It’s a bombastic and immersive piece that focuses solely on keyboards, pushing the music down a dungeon synth route not unlike early MORTIIS. It’s a great change of pace that helps end the album on a high note as opposed to detracting from the overarching sound of Pulsar‘s 1 to 7.

Doing a side by side comparison between this album and its predecessor, there’s plenty of difference. Listeners who might have listen to the previous album may have felt that MITOCHONDRIAL SUN were going to be more of a solidly dark ambient/electronic affair, and although these elements are still fairly prominent in MITOCHONDRIAL SUN‘s sound, there’s plenty of great, melody-tinged black metal present here that complements the more ethereal keyboards extremely well. Although the music itself has diversified, the songs are much punchier and catchier than on the last album, with even the longer songs only stretching to about four minutes, which ultimately gives this album a tighter and leaner feel. Whether this album represents what the band’s music will be like moving forward remains to be seen, but, much like the debut, this is a fantastic album that showcases loads of great ideas and a lot of potential for albums to come.

Rating: 8/10

Sju Pulsarer is out now via Argonauta Records.

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