OUT OF MYSELF

Now a real powerhouse of modern prog, Riverside debuted in 2003 and instantly turned heads with "Out of Myself". There's a maturity of sound and surety of songwriting that is normally the domain of bands with more experience, bands who have made early mistakes and learned from them as their skills developed. Not Riverside. They arrived with a stunning album where everything works.

The album begins with "The Same River", which, in the early stages at least, is a largely instrumental track that features a nice layering of instruments. With this, we are eased gently into the album via dream-like guitar and a brooding bass accompaniment. This builds for a number of minutes as the guitar becomes more frenetic and as percussion kicks in.

The song gradually moves to a more subdued mood and we hear the first substantial vocal input from Mariusz Duda. Finally, the song ebbs away with a beautiful mournful guitar and vocal duet that builds into one last crescendo.

"I Believe" begins with the sounds of a cocktail party that gradually drifts away as Duda delivers a couple of lines of spoken word. What follows is a beautiful and sorrowful acoustic track that is one of the best on the album.

"Reality Dream" is the first of two instrumentals that have a real Dream Theater-esque quality about them. Sandwiched in between is "Loose Heart", a song that performed quite well for the band as a single and justifiably so. It's a gorgeous track with some amazing melodic lead guitar from Piotr Grudzinski.

The album closes with some mellow tracks, with "In Two Minds" and "The Curtain Falls" particularly noteworthy. Riverside display their versatility here in creating moods we haven't yet experienced on the album.

In fact, it's safe to say that no two tracks are alike across the duration of this release. There's a great sense of diversity while still retaining a consistent sound and style. As noted earlier, it's a trait that many bands take years to perfect, but which Riverside managed to pull off on their first foray.