Riverside
Love, Fear and the Time Machine

Polish band Riverside impressed us quite a bit with their previous album that can be shortened S.O.N.G.S. and now they return with a new piece of work that actually has a time machine present. It all sounds very exciting and given that the press sheet states that the band has moved on from their past and changed in terms of having a lot shorter songs on this album and also being more melodic granting more space for the keyboards, it all seems very exciting for this new composition. It has a nice cover art and everything but how about the music? Is it exciting or is it just one more of those albums?

Well, it is a fairly long album with a playing time just past the hour spread over ten tracks where the playing time is around six or seven minutes generally. It is very melodic, excellent production given space to the various elements of the songs but also to the songs themselves, creating a great mood for the album. The good singer also adds to this sense of quality, it certainly sounds as though the band know their way around the studio and their respective instruments. The variation over the hour is quite large and with lots of dimensions and depth in the songs, the playing time feels very agreeable. I think that this is a great quality recording, the soundscape is quite epic.

And the songs are very good as well making this great album. I think it is better than their previous effort but not so good that it deserves a higher rating. I think that these guys show that they know what is important when making progressive rock; you cannot really look at the past, just look forwards and throw off the ties of past success or failure. Sure they have gone a bit away from what they did before, but isn’t that what progressive music is all about? It isn’t very progressive to repeat oneself and that is something these guys don’t do. Instead they paint a musical soundscape that is both enchanting and exciting, they create a great album and one that fans of the genre most certainly will enjoy.

There are many good things about this album and I really don’t feel the need to pick for anything negative as they do what they do with skill and they show off a great album as a result. All albums have flaws but in some albums, like this one, there is really no need to dig them out. I really enjoy this album and think every song on it is excellent but there are a few that might be considered to stand out amongst those excellent tracks and that is #Addicted, a track I think is my favourite on the album. Then we have the opening and ending tracks Lost and Found that frames this album brilliantly, and I have to say that Riverside might be the best thing to come out of Poland ever and that is not just exclusive to music. You should look this album up, you don’t want to miss it.

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