Pulsar
Halloween

Halloween was a pagan festival, celebrated at the end of October right before the winter months. It was linked to the cyclical times of nature and agricultural activities. The first civilization where we have knowledge of events of this type is that of the Celts (rest assured that in Italy it wasn't legitimized by the leghisti, considering how good they are at citing the Celts nonsensically). With the advent of Christianity, the festival was supplanted by All Saints’ Day, celebrated the day after, with the aim of eliminating any trace of the pagan cults to replace them with those of the new religion (a similar thought was also applied to Christmas, which at the time was the celebration of Sol Invictus and later became what we know today).

What do Halloween and Christmas have in common, besides suffering Christian interference? The fact of being, nowadays, colossal commercial spectacles with a rather substantial market turnover, which for the former Celtic festival has been growing a lot in recent years (at least here in Italy). To this, you might say: "Why did you make all this absolutely useless introduction?" My answer is: I want to talk to you about an album titled "Halloween." Of course, you might retort: "Look, it's November 4th, you're late!" I'm lazy, what can you do? Nothing, so I'll talk to you about music anyway and great music in this case.

The calendar marks that it's 1977, in France. A year zero almost everywhere since the punk wave was exploding with all its aftermath in the following years. Yet, somewhere scattered around the world, someone was still thinking about Progressive and had good intentions (despite being past the due time). There was space and time to record something, and the Pulsar managed it too, having already two works: "Pollen," still very raw, and "The Strands of The Future," qualitatively better. The peak comes with the third album, "Halloween." What prompted them to name their third work like this is unknown, but the result is evident to everyone who knows it. It has created conflicting opinions among Progressive enthusiasts: some shout masterpiece, others remain decidedly more skeptical. Personally, I tend to side with the former: it’s a little gem that came at the wrong time. Had it been recorded a few years earlier, it would have made a significant impact, remaining embedded in the memory of many. What’s recorded? An incredible and colorful cauldron where numerous ingredients mix in the various parts that make up the two suites. The first side opens with a childlike, almost celestial voice for about two minutes. Then you enter the heart of it, where you hear intervals of acoustic and electric guitars, keyboard elements that even wink at some New-Wave (!), a drum that, when set in motion, is always in the thick of the action, and contours of flutes, clarinets, and strings. An album capable of alternating "mystical" parts with other restless and even distressing ones. The voices of Jean-Louis Rebut and Gilbert Gandil strengthen it all.

It’s not easy to find all this in a prog record, Pulsar succeed in accomplishing their ideological and compositional summa. Is it a masterpiece? Probably yes, but I don't feel comfortable pronouncing such verdicts explicitly after listening to it.