OUT OF MYSELF

Riverside is another of those heavy modern prog bands (I don't know if I'd call this group prog-metal since less half the songs on this debut album have metallic touches) that make some of the right noises yet leave me cold. Riverside's influences range from anyone from Marillion and Pink Floyd to Dream Theater and Eloy but I'm not a fan of the end product.

My frustrations when listening to Riverside can be summed up by the first track The Same River. After taking an age to really get going, it is anchored by a nice rumbling bass riff (in fact I found Mariusz Duda's bass playing to be the highlight of Riverside's music) but despite some nice synth touches and highly capable drumming, the unconvincing guitar work (in terms of melody, not skill) and meandering song structure left me bored. The title track too, has a good opening bass run and some powerful guitar riffing and yet I don't rate the song.

There are all kinds of tantalising yet ultimately fruitless moments on this album. I Believe and In two Minds are lovely acoustic numbers ... the former sounds particularly good once the whole band kicks in (oh so delicately) but it's hardly what I look for in a progressive rock band. Reality Dream begins with a spectacular keyboard lead that had me drooling and then descended into another bass heavy number that Dream Theater could do in their sleep ... despite a nice outro melody too much of the piece has been done before. Loose Heart has a lot of passion, I liked some of the zany fills in the Floyd-style stoner ballad OK and the metal instrumental Reality Dream II also contained some excellent playing.

At the point at which Riverside made this album, they must have known that there were dozens of bands out there who were doing the same thing, and had been doing so for nearly a decade. As such, this album feels like a wasted opportunity to me. ... 24% on the MPV scale