UNREST

Mostly pointless noodling. The first song, with its dissonant but reasonably listener-friendly structure, is really good -- all 2 minutes, 44 seconds of it. Then, it's all downhill. Pointless guitar riffs drifting off to nowhere; a violin on "Ruins" that sounds like its primary mission is to scare crows off a cornfield; quote/unquote "vocals" on "Linquaphonie" which shriek like the voices in a schizophrenic's mind; a piano that apparently hasn't been tuned since 1791 -- and other assorted goodness. The only good thing about this album is it's over pretty quickly.

I like RIO. In fact, I love RIO. And I understand that these guys are one of the fathers of the genre. But if you want to listen to good RIO, try Univers Zero. This album is only valuable as a time capsule of the beginnings of the RIO movement.