Riverland
s/t

Finnish duo Riverland has a singer we recently wrote about, Mikko Heino normally does the vocal duties for the band Minutian. The debut is a self titled seven track story that is just over twenty minutes long, it has a tranquil looking cover art although the powerlines seem a bit wrong, maybe someone should have photoshopped them out. Anyway, the band calls their music acoustic pop music with elements of progressive rock and psychedelia. That seems a decently accurate description of what we get.

The music is fairly tranquil, acoustic guitars, good melodies, nice mellow vocals on the most parts but with some touches of higher pitched vocals here and there. I do not think the high pitched stuff is that brilliant and you could also argue that the album lacks variation. It even starts and ends in the same way, which you could argue is a lack of variation but of course it can also be argued that they make the music come full circle. The sound is good, it has a nice mellow and tranquil feel to it. I think it is a fairly well put together, a strong acoustic album.

I think this is a strong album, it has many benefits and a great atmosphere. I also think that they way it comes full circle at the end by ending as it started is a very good thing. The vocals are mainly very good as well. But somehow I think they could have done more with it, it feels like there is much untapped potential here. One thing is the lack of variation, the album hasn’t enough depth to create any longer lasting impression, which is a shame. Question is why that is, because there are many good things about it and I like it even if it isn’t as much as I think I should have liked it.

So, a decent little album that is fairly enjoyable listening to. As I was alluding to, it is decent but at the same time it lacks that little extra which makes a good album great. At the same time I think this is a good presentation of an interesting project that can lead to something exciting in the future.

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