ANNO DOMINI HIGH DEFINITION

Well, the latest effort from Riverside, and this CD falls short of four stars (just). Perhaps they have run out of ideas, but the first two tracks are so-so, with fast metal riffing and not much in the way of interesting guitar/keyboards. If you are in the mood for something a bit heavier, then perhaps Opeth is preferable, thus I wouldn't be expecting riverside to fulfill my needs for the heavier end of the prog-metal spectrum. Thats why the first three tracks fall short of the standards set on the two previous CD's. Having said that, the two longer tracks, 4 and 5 save this CD from a LOW three and ALMOST make it up to a FOUR. The fourth track "Left out" features a nice bit of bombastic guitar and features some nice guitar licks as well. The fifth "Hybrid Times" takes them more into territory that was marched across in SLS and REM and has a nice instrumental bit (That reminds me of IQ's Erosion) the instrumental meander is good then eventually the track sort of peters out into an ambient trance out-tro that you expect to come back and get back to some riffing before a bombastic finale, some might like that but i found it a bit disapponting end to the best track, anyway - 3.8 stars (rounded down to a three because it's not as good as REM)