LOVE, FEAR AND THE TIME MACHINE

I love bands that evolve, who are not afraid to try new things or to reinvent themselves every once in a while or even for every album. Riverside seems to be one such band. Each and every release of theirs from their first in 2004, "Out of Myself" to this one have been quite distinctively different from all the others. What is unfortunate is that only one of the many mantles Mariuz Duda and company have tried on only one has worked for me, the others have all been minor or major disappointments. What causes such disappointment is due to the absolute heights of perfection the band achieved on their 2005 masterpiece, "Second Life Syndrome." Everything that has come since (and, for that matter, before) must be compared to the stunning standards of production, composition, engagement, power, ambience, and flow that was SLS and, like this one, "Love, Fear and the Time Machine," all have come up shockingly short. "Too Neo Prog," "too abrasive metal," "too sterile," "too much awash in synthesizers," "too derivative of past styles and sounds," "moving too much toward the pop end of the prog spectrum"--these are just some of the criticisms I've had for Riverside albums before and after "Second Life Syndrome." Why can't they create songs as clean, crisp, and starkly powerful as SLS again? Why all the fooling around with styles and sounds that are so far beneath them? I don't know who is giving them their ideas, their notes, their suggestions, but they're wrong! This is a heavy prog band with THE best, most signatory album in modern heavy prog music! I hope that someday they will be able to recapture the majesty and grandeur of one of the 21st Century's most brightly shining examples of progressive rock music.