LOVE, FEAR AND THE TIME MACHINE

Away from the sonorities of great metal intensity and closer to an intimate and peaceful aesthetic, and even with some insinuations to the accessible tendencies of eighties and nineties pop, Riverside publishes 'Love, Fear, and the Time Machine', their sixth album. A work that has frontman Mariusz Duda as the main protagonist, both for the versatility with which he manipulates his vocal register, taking it from melancholic phrases to whispers that invite complicity, and for his contribution to the melodies accompanied by his inseparable bass.

Using the concepts of love, fear and their connections with the past and the future as leitmotifs, the Poles develop clean and unsaturated atmospheres, with several points of intersection with respect to Steven Wilson's Porcupine Tree, such as the melancholic 'Lost (Why Should I Be Frightened By a Hat? )", which from Michal Lapaj's initial Hammond adds nuances up to Piotr Grudzinski's brief and heartfelt solo, the restful and naked "Afloat" with the almost invisible Hammond and Duda's arpeggiated acoustic guitars, combined with some more accessible pieces such as the expeditious "#Addicted" and the new wave airs of "Discard your Fear".

In an album that rarely pushes the accelerator, the highlights come from the longer tracks: the excellent instrumentation of the plaintive 'Saturate Me' with a good guitar riff by Grudzinski and Lapaj's keyboard curtain, and the nostalgic 'Towards The Blue Horizon' with its incisive arpeggiated beginning, Duda's confessional sobs and an intensity that goes back and forth between acoustic developments and dramatic mental landscapes. One of the album's best.

The final section rounds out the overall concept, with the hopeful, unplugged 'Time Travellers' and the uplifting 'Found (The Unexpected Flaw Of Searching)', a clear counterpoint and optimistic reference to the opening 'Lost (Why Should I Be Frightened By A Hat?)'.

Although it misses a greater participation of the riffs and solos of the excellent guitarist that was Grudzinski, relegated to the benefit of more glacial and less harsh melodies, 'Love, Fear, and the Time Machine' comes out ahead because of the solvency shown by the band in the exploration of new paths.

3.5/4 stars.