SECOND LIFE SYNDROME

This is a gorgeous album. Well written songs, wonderfully instrumented and brilliantly played: piano, washes of keyboards, superb languid and angry guitar playing, the rhythm section is ace too. Songs that shift in tempo and mood, great melodic lines - it just doesn't get any better than this!!

Points of reference for Riverside's soundscape are Pink Floyd and Porcupine Tree. For me their music is more enjoyable than Pink Floyd's because they develop it further in tempo and hard rock edge than Floyd, so that you reaaly do feel that you are listening to a rock band, which isn't always the case with Floyd. So they've taken that kind of progressive rock towards Porcupinte Tree's more recent heavier work but not quite so far, in that they retain more melody and more variety of song construction than the recent PT.

My favourite on the album is "Conceiving Me" but there really isn't a weak moment.

Thoroughly recommended!