SECOND LIFE SYNDROME

This album, just like the rest of Riverside's discography, is ridiculously overrated. The thing is that I actually discovered Riverside before discovering this site, one of my friends mentioned them and said they were a mixture between Dream Theater, Opeth and Porcupine Tree.

Since those are very good bands I actually expected a very unique and special sound because I couldn't think of another band with such characteristics. Then I listened to Out Of Myself and all my hype for this band dropped to the ground. Gave it another try, this time removing my earwax and it was still terribly generic. Anyways, I stopped trying to like that album and forgot about this band entirely. That was eight years ago.

After I recently entered this site and checked the prog metal section, I almost jumped off my seat when I looked at the high ratings of their albums, and I said: Hmm, maybe I should give them another try!

And started with this album, after all, it's their highest rated...

*Sigh* I guess sometimes opinions don't change. This album is just a slightly better Out Of Myself. There's definitely a (very small) evolution from their first record, the problem comes when their music still sounds generic. The whole album isn't special in any, I repeat, any way. Formulaic is the best way to describe them, and not a single melody or memory sticks with you after a full listen.

The title track is pretty much the proof that Riverside has no idea how to make a lengthy song. It's a 7-Minute song overextended to SIXTEEN minutes for no reason at all.

It has a lengthy intro and even though it starts to pick up steam around minute three with the bass line in an odd time signature, it gets shadowed by the upcoming section which is, once again, a boring and lengthy calm section that has no reason to be as long as it is. The song gets slightly interesting with the middle-eastern theme that follows up, but then a boring (and unnecessarily long) guitar solo kicks in, concluding the song.

The rest of the album isn't interesting or special in the slightest, and to this day I still don't understand why this band is respected as much as it is. One star.