Tag Archives: reviews

Out of Myself

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Welcome to my series of reviews of the Riverside catalogue.   You can read my intro and initial rankings here.

I hope you find them interesting, and I would be pleased if you’d leave a comment or two…even if you disagree.  Hell, especially if you disagree, because hearing your opinion is more interesting than just having an echo chamber.

Besides…if too many people agree with me, I’ll suspect I’m doing something wrong.

Out of Myself

Released: Poland 2003 with original cover/2004 rest of world, cover by Travis Smith

 Personnel:

  • Mariusz Duda: vocals, bass guitar, acoustic guitar, lyrics
  • Piotr Grudziński: guitars
  • Piotr Kozieradzki: drums
  • Jacek Melnicki: keyboards

Tracklist:

  1. The Same River
  2. Out of Myself
  3. I Believe
  4. Reality Dream
  5. Loose Heart
  6. Reality Dream II
  7. In Two Minds
  8. The Curtain Falls
  9. ok

Out of Myself  is the album that introduced Riverside to the world…and for a first album, this is as grand an entrance as can be imagined.  Imbued with an astonishing sophistication of sound and vision, it is confident and forward-looking; call it what you will — prog rock, prog metal — this album married the various band-member influences (and inevitable comparisons to Certain Other Bands) into one glorious progressive bundle.  Influences aside, Riverside marched into progressive consciousness as an entity unto itself, and the band has managed to maintain its unique sound throughout its subsequent stylistic incarnations.

As it turns out, an early version of their music, raw and unrefined, exists on a 7-track “demo”.*  A couple of the tracks from this made it onto Out of Myself more or less intact (just cleaned up), but others are very differently conceived (such as “The Curtain Falls”), one has completely disappeared into oblivion (never rerecorded as anything that I have found), and one reappeared much later as a track on the “Conceiving You” single.  This bit of history provides a fascinating glimpse of the wobbly first steps of what would eventually become one of the most polished and professional musical outfits around.

Out of Myself pulls no punches: it kicks off with “The Same River”, a 12-minute prog opus, and from there manages to encompass an impressive range of styles: delicate acoustic ballads, pure face-stomping instrumental metal, screams and growls, the willingness to wander off in different musical directions and back again.  We discover Mariusz Duda’s intimate, introspective lyric style, and his lovely distinctive voice.  And behind it all what would become Riverside’s hallmark sound: Piotr Grudziński’s great winding guitar themes and melodies and Duda’s intricate bass playing, anchored by solid drumming and the vast soundscape wash of the keyboards.  It would take another album and a new keyboard player for all these elements to coalesce, but this first album is remarkable for how thoroughly it introduces us to the essence of Riverside.

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Blowing the Dust Off: Tumbleweed Connection by Elton John

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Welcome to the first post in a new occasional project: revisiting music that has sat, unplayed, in my vinyl collection for so long I don’t remember what it sounds like. Often these are albums from artists whose other work I like, or that I bought because a song or two caught my attention, or that thought I “should” have for whatever reason. I think we all have managed to accumulate a few of these albums.

So I’ve decided that this blog is a perfect excuse to haul them out, dust them off, give them a spin, and write up short reviews to tell you about them. With luck, I will discover some forgotten treasures. On the other hand it may inspire me to get rid of stuff and open up some much-needed (Much. Needed.) space for albums I might actually want to own.

Tumbleweed Connection by Elton John

Released 1970

Tracklist:

  1. Ballad of a Well-known Gun
  2. Come Down in Time
  3. Country Comfort
  4. Son of Your Father
  5. My Father’s Gun
  6. Where to Now St. Peter?
  7. Love Song
  8. Amoreena
  9. Talking Old Soldiers
  10. Burn Down the Mission

Tumbleweed Connection is Elton John’s 3rd album, a follow-up to his self-titled second that provided him with his first major hit (“Your Song”). It did well in the charts, reaching No. 2 in the UK Albums Charts and No. 5 in the American Billboard chart. As with most of his albums, John wrote and composed the music and Bernie Taupin wrote the lyrics.

I was never much of an Elton John fan, he was far too pop and mainstream for my taste. But for some reason this album struck a chord—or more accurately, one track from this album dug itself in deep, even if I never much listened to the rest of the album. The beautiful, poignant ballad “Where to Now St. Peter?” resonates with me in a way that few songs do; whenever I work up a list of my favourite songs of all time, it always manages to find its way there. That must mean something.

 

Tumbleweed Connection is vaguely a concept album, wherein John and Taupin try to capture the Gestalt of some sort of mythic American West. Lyrically it is replete with the themes and tropes of “America”: home and hearth, the old west, The Gunfighter…. I can’t really comment on how well they managed to accomplish that, but musically there is a real western flavour and tang to these tracks, country-rock and bluesy ballads, lovely gospelly vocal harmonies, harmonica and steel guitar and honky-tonk piano…they have pulled off an album of nicely evocative, gentle, country-style songs.

I’m happy to say that this is an album well worth listening to, and I plan to hang on to it. Maybe “Old Soldiers Talking” borders on maudlin, and the piano theme for “Amoreena” is essentially a major-key version of the theme for “Where to Now…” but overall this is an album of fine country rockers, lovely ballads, and very pleasant soft rock time-fillers. And the packaging is vintage ‘70s album-cover: a well-designed gatefold where the album opening is inside at the fold, and a large format book with lyrics and photos. And they manage to put all that quality on a plain-bread 120 gram pressing in a sleeve that doesn’t occupy a half-inch of shelf space the way the modern crazy-thick vinyl covers do (this is a bit of a pet peeve of mine…).

Note: The track “Country Comfort” was written for Rod Stewart, which appeared on his second solo album Gasoline Alley, also in 1970.

Hand. Cannot. Erase. The new Steven Wilson is here.

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Take a cut of the heavier, proggier end of Steven Wilson and season it with a judicious pinch of jazz fusion, simmer with a touch of Blackfield and Grace for Drowning, and serve over a bed of Porcupine Tree. Present on a silver platter of fan-hype and accolades and Voila! Hand. Cannot. Erase., the new Steven Wilson solo album.

I’ve been playing this more or less regularly since the iTunes download arrived (read: at least once a day) in order to get a feel for it. I’m not sure yet where it fits in the Wilson solo canon, but my overall impression is of an album of pleasant tedium interrupted by moments of sheer beauty. And alas I find that there are not nearly enough moments of sheer beauty, or any sort of other exceptional moments. It is all very competently done (as is ever the case with Wilson): well composed, well sung, well played, but overall it tastes rather…not so much bland, as restrained.

On the plus side: HCE is poppier, proggier, and more purely face-melting heavy than anything Steven Wilson has done solo for a long time, and this is not a bad thing. These are skills that are not lacking in the Wilson musical recipe book, and his prog-pop (pop-prog?) work is nicely concise and to the point. The long instrumental passages and jazzy solo stretches of the last two albums are (mostly) gone. There are instrumental breaks, of course, but they move the song along and one doesn’t get the feeling they were stuck in there as a showcase for somebody’s chops. This is a clear improvement. The introduction and careful use of the female vocalist has worked out better than a lot of people expected: Ninet Tayeb has a wonderful voice and her parts are perfectly placed.

Wilson does have a gift for the beautiful melody, and on an album as pop-flavoured as this one, he really shines. The title track is catchy, infectious, upbeat, and surprisingly heavy at times; I’ve heard people say that it might be a bit too Blackfield-ish, but you know, he does this sort of thing so well. The man has such a vast repertoire; I see no problem with his pulling influences from wherever he needs to get them. Likewise the intense heavy moments are reminiscent of the metal-ish days of Porcupine Tree – which suits me fine because those were my favourite PT albums. It’s nice to hear them again.

I wish there were more tracks as completely immersive as “Hand Cannot Erase” but unfortunately the other stunning moments are kind of scattershot, popping up in the midst of pleasant but otherwise unremarkable tracks: the last third of “Routine”, the first bit of “First Regret/3 Years Older” for example.

And on the downside: HCE has more heart and soul than The Raven that Refused to Sing possessed, and much less (thank god) sheer wankery than was on Grace for Drowning, but despite the beautifully heartbreaking moments and joyful metal heaviness, I find it lacks a fundamental sense of adventure or daring. It is just so polite and restrained. The most applicable description is “nice”, with all the innate blandness implied in the word, and the great moments are not enough to overcome that final sense of dissatisfaction at the end of the album. It could have been so much more.

I will wind up on a more positive note because the album does end well: “Ancestral” (at least the last two thirds of it) is a mighty, mighty song. It. Kicks. Ass. in the way Deadwing kicked ass, and there are sections that could have come directly from Deadwing.

And “Happy Returns/Ascendant Here on…” is my favourite song on the album by far, heartbreaking and transcendently beautiful.

Alas, there just are not enough of these moments on this album. It is a tasty stew, but it is not Cordon Bleu.

7.5 /10

And Just Who is this Riverside Outfit Anyway? 2023 Update.

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I am glad you asked.  My answer: the best band in the world.  But you probably saw that one coming.

I have given this post a heavy edit; I first wrote it in 2015, when the discography consisted of five albums and two EPs, and one live album. I added new notes with each release up to Wasteland, but it became a mess, and the sequence hard to follow. So to hell with that. I will condense it into a list of official release dates.

 The other thing though, is that I find I must revise my rankings. After a decade of listening and careful thought, I realize that there simply are albums I love way less than I want to. I mean, I don’t want to not love (I won’t say ‘dislike’ because it is not that) any of the albums, but I have to be honest enough to admit when they don’t work for me, and sometimes I wasn’t. However, I am not going to touch the actual reviews that I link to. For the most part, they say what I want them to say.

 Riverside Release Dates:

  • Out of Myself: 2003 Poland/2004 Rest of World
  • Voices in My Head (EP): 2005
  • Second Life Syndrome: 2005
  • Rapid Eye Movement: 2007
  • Anno Domini High Definition: 2009
  • Memories in My Head (EP): 2011
  • Shrine of New Generation Slaves: 2013
  • Love, Fear and the Time Machine: 2015
  • Eye of the Soundscape: 2016
  • Wasteland: 2018
  • ID.Entity: 2023

Note:  Eye of the Soundscape has been reviewed  here.  I have not included it in the rankings below for reasons explained in that review.

But to get started…since I am reviewing the albums, I guess I am also rating them, one against the other, a task that is no trivial matter. And as with all such lists, it is mostly a reflection of my own personal taste and inclination and less a judgement call on the objective quality of the music. The band’s output varies so greatly in style and approach that it is impossible to actually pin down a genre beyond the broadest notion of “progressive”, and it should come as no surprise that some of their explorations resonated with me more than others.

Anyway, let’s begin with a rough ranking, from least favourite to most beloved, with a little capsule explanation for why they are in this order.

Voices in My Head (EP): made up of brief ballads and one great song, and a couple of very good ones. Only half the tracks are new, the other half are live versions of songs from the first album.  See review here

Love, Fear and the Time Machine: This is the album that shifted its position the most: it was fifth, but alas, over the years I have come to like it less and less. It is an oddball.  LFatTM is a rather more delicate and personal album — personal to Mariusz Duda that is — than any of the others, and with the exception of two great tracks, it just doesn’t work for me. See review here.

Shrine of New Generation Slaves: This is the most variable in quality of all the albums—there are a couple of excellent tracks, and alas a couple that are downright mediocre, something I regret to have to say about any Riverside song. The brilliant “Night Sessions” bonus tracks pull this album off the bottom. See review here.

Out of Myself: There is something about this album that keeps it from moving up higher in the ranks. I like it when I play it but I don’t get the urge to play it very often. Michał Łapaj had not yet joined the band, and so the sound is not yet “signature”; also, there are fewer (maybe only one) really stunning tracks than one generally finds on a Riverside album.  See review here.

Rapid Eye Movement: The songs here range from brilliant to unmemorable, but alas it is the unmemorable that dominate. They are good songs but for some reason they simply do not stick in my memory – rarely an earworm from this album.  However, the bonus disc is a revelation: these remixes and semi-experimental long instrumentals show a side of the band perhaps less appreciated than it should be. It is different enough from REM I to be almost a separate album. See review for REM here.

Memories in My Head: (EP) This EP represent the absolutely classic Riverside sound, in the form of three long, lovely proggy songs. If only the last one had fit in better….  Review is here.

Second Life Syndrome: This is a glorious album, not quite at the top because it is a bit variable in quality, but the monumental title track is one of the best, truly inspired long prog epics ever recorded by anyone, ever.  Review here.

Wasteland: Riverside the trio, their first album as such, and with a whole new sound and feeling…and it is a massive accomplishment, from a band that has found their footing again.  It took me a while to come to the conclusion that it does not quite reach the inspirational heights of ADHD, and it edges ahead of SLS mostly because the guys are now much more experienced craftsmen and performers.  Review is here.

ID.Entity: This album is stunningly good, and it really was in the running for the best (for me); I do believe it encapsulates the entire history of the band in a brilliant way, and is enormously energetic — it is in fact so close to the top that I cannot promise that I won’t change my mind later. But as for right now….  Review is here

Anno Domini High Definition (ADHD): Ahhh yes, kick-ass progressive metal, a side of the band that surprised people I think, loud and raunchy and hard and relentless; in my mind the guys are at the absolute top of their game on this album. It was the first album for which they took a different approach to the recording of it, and boy did it work.  ID.Entity comes very close, but the tight conciseness of ADHD, and the epic genius of “Left Out” was just too high a bar to get over. Review here.

See also a discussion of the Reality Dream live album/DVD here.

 

The Final Entry: The Actual Album of the Year

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Lunatic Soul:  Walking on a Flashlight Beam

It was difficult to know what to do with this album. Clearly it is the number one album of my year, but it didn’t take too many listens to realize that this was an album I could not in good conscience stick into the same list with the other, mere music offerings – it was hardly fair to them. At any rate, since it transcends just about everything else I’ve heard—not only this year but maybe for the last decade, I decided to put it into its own category.   So yes, my list goes to eleven.   😀

The actual review for this album can be found here. Please read it if you want a detailed, somewhat rational take on it.

I have to admit, I was somewhat anxious about how this album was going to fit in with the other three Lunatic Soul albums. It is difficult to describe what this music means to me–hell I wouldn’t even call it “music”…whatever it is that is at the heart and soul of Lunatic Soul: the approach and sounds, the musical philosophy and vision…it absolutely enmeshes itself into me. It is essential like blood and bone and breath. I am astonished that something like this even exists out there, and abjectly grateful to whatever fates might be at work that I was able to find it (or that it found me…there is a case to be made for that).

But enough of that.

I needn’t have worried. WoaFB is different, but only in the details. The essence of Lunatic Soul has not changed, in fact maybe even more Lunatic Soul-ish…likely because its creator was more focused and it is a true solo album, with no dilution of vision through other people (yes, there is a drummer, but clearly Mariusz Duda and Wawrzyniec Dramowicz are on the same wavelength).

However…now I worry that if ever I am stranded on that Desert Island, forty percent of my album allocation is already accounted for. I wonder if I can pretend it is a single item….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1XbtU31KbU

 

Albums of 2014: Numbers 1 and 2.

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And finally…the Winners….   🙂

Number 2

Seven Impale:  City of the Sun

This was one of those albums that came out of the blue.  A recommendation from a friend, he also provided the warning: “give them a chance” – which can be regarded as either a challenge, or a red flag.   And the first time I played the album, I knew exactly what he meant: I spent a lot of the time thinking, “What the fuck is going on here??”   But I also got that feeling…the one where I have no idea if I liked what I heard, but there was something.   Albums that start out that way, that leave me bemused and intrigued, that demand revisiting in order to make sense of them, often end up being long-term winners.

Who are they? A six-piece from Bergen, Norway. What are they? Well, it is hard to describe what they do. Psychedelic jazz-rock-fusion, lots of saxophone winding all through prog-like songs, they sound deceptively loose and crazy, but don’t be fooled. What we have here is masterfully-controlled chaos.

While they do not really sound like any of those bands, they are reminiscent of Soft Machine, Quiet Sun, a bit of jazz-era Crimson. Each song is a surprise, the way the elements are all intertwined, sliding smoothly from raucus disorganized noise to nice melodic themes, changing up the time signatures but not in that self-referential way that modern prog bands tend to do—when it happens, it’s like it takes everyone by surprise, listener and performer both.

Every time I play this album, I am surprised how much I like what I hear, because otherwise every musical instinct tells me this is not the kind of thing that holds my attention. But these guys are the real deal. They don’t sound quite like anyone else, and sometimes they sound less like a band than a loose collective of people wandering in and out of the songs at random. If you do choose to listen…well, give them a chance.

 

Continue reading Albums of 2014: Numbers 1 and 2. →

The Albums of 2014: Nos. 5 – 3

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Continuing where we left off in the last post…

Number 5

The Pineapple Thief:   Magnolia

The Pineapple Thief  had never struck me as especially noteworthy before this on the few times I had sampled their stuff. I found them pleasant but somewhat conventional, and not memorable enough to convince me to investigate more fully.

 Magnolia is a different kettle of fish: here we have a dozen shortish tracks that are more than just pleasant timewasters, they are quite substantial, with very powerful melodies and great hooks, moving easily from soft ballad-like passages to heavy driving dense guitars in the same song. The songs are lush, memorable in feel, they can be quite orchestral, very nice songwriting happening here. This is exactly the sort of thing I need when I’m not looking for a musical challenge, nor do I want drony background sounds, but I also want music that is interesting in its own right if I choose to pay closer attention. I’m not sure if it is enough to make me run out and buy the rest of the discography, but it’s one of those albums that serves its purpose above and beyond the call of duty, fine enough to make it into the top end of the list.

Continue reading The Albums of 2014: Nos. 5 – 3 →

The Albums of 2014: Nos. 10 to 6

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So here we are, the albums that made the cut for the year…

Number 10

Sounds Like the End of the World:   Stages of Delusion

Sounds Like the End of the World is a 5-piece instrumental post-rock outfit, recently formed, from Gdansk, Poland. I had never heard of them, until one of them (or maybe their manager, I forget) popped up in my Facebook chat with a link. So I checked them out and pretty much liked what I heard.

They tend to play at the more sedate end of post-rock, and that tends not to be my favourite part of the genre, but they can turn on the heavy when they want to, enriching the guitar/bass/drum sound with keyboards which adds an nice textural element to their sound. However, after a while it does begin to all sound similar, and I find that my attraction to the music depends on my mood. Sometimes it does not work, and sometimes it does. For that reason the album was in and out of the Top 10 like a yoyo, until I finally decided that it really is more satisfying to listen to than the other contender for the spot. And I certainly enjoy it more than most of the stuff I have heard this year.

 

Continue reading The Albums of 2014: Nos. 10 to 6 →

Album Review — Lunatic Soul: Walking on a Flashlight Beam

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Since this is more than an Album of the Year…it gets the full treatment.

Released October 2014 on Kscope and Mystic Productions (Poland)

Personnel:

  • Mariusz Duda: vocals, bass and acoustic guitars, ukelele, keyboards, percussion
  • Wawrzyniec Dramowicz: drums

Tracklist:

  1. Shutting Out the Sun
  2. Cold
  3. Gutter
  4. Stars Sellotaped
  5. The Fear Within
  6. Treehouse
  7. Pygmalion’s Ladder
  8. Sky Drawn in Crayon
  9. Walking on a Flashlight Beam

Pages turn in a book…we hear the sea: slow waves rattling on the shingled beach, an echo-y one-note bass-line, deep in the background, begins….Walking on a Flashlight Beam, the new offering from Lunatic Soul, starts where “Impression IV” on the third album left off –with the rolling hiss of waves on the shore, a deep ominous pulse of electronics in the background. It is an album where books, the sea, impressions, imagination, dreams, and fears figure large; an album that its creator struggled to make and almost didn’t. But it is here, and what a gift it is.

Walking on a Flashlight Beam is the fourth Lunatic Soul album, the solo project and eponymous alter ego of Mariusz Duda, the leader of the Polish prog outfit Riverside. It works as a “prequel” to the lyric story arc of the first two Lunatic Soul albums, although that may not have been the initial intent when Duda went into the studio. He has been uncommonly forthcoming about the difficulties he experienced: The creative roadblocks and the subsequent withdrawal into personal reclusion eventually inspired the core idea of the album — the self-imposed isolation by individuals for creative or psychological reasons (such as hikikomori – young Japanese men who choose to seclude themselves and experience the outside world through a virtual filter). This phenomenon becomes the central motif of the album: Duda does not simply help us to imagine such isolation, he leads us straight into the agonized heart and soul of loneliness, solitude, the dark terror and desperate hope of someone who has chosen to cut himself off completely from the world. Despite that, it is a haunting, poignant, and heartbreakingly-beautiful journey we embark upon, with Mariusz Duda as our Ferryman.

It is difficult to convey how remarkably cohesive this album is. Each song fits exactly where it belongs, and there are very few wasted moments. Mood, music, lyrics are all perfectly intertwined and complementary, masterfully controlled; this consistency gives the album an organic ebb and flow that makes the 64 minutes seem like the shortest hour in the world. It is also truly a solo album: Duda has written every word and note, and played every instrument except the drums, which he has left to the almost preternatural skill of Wawrzyniec Dramowicz. This gives the album a sort of single-minded intensity not present in the other Lunatic Soul albums, and the result is almost cinematic in its vision and feel.

The album begins with “Shutting Out the Sun” and “Cold”, with their eerie ambient rhythms, winding synthesized bass lines and haunted vocals, slowly building up an unsettling sense of foreboding and unease. In “Cold” there seems a faint hope of redemption: the protagonist of the lyrics has shut himself away but still longs for human contact. Alas the soul-consuming terrors return in “Gutter”. This is a monster of a song. With its hypnotic eastern-flavoured themes, a dense, intricate bass line, and pounding, implacable rhythms, this astonishing track is perhaps the most primal and erotic music ever to come from the creative imagination of Mariusz Duda — it is damned near pornographic. No wonder it is a fan favourite.

At the end of “Gutter” our hero triple-locks his door. The largely instrumental middle part of the album carries us into an internal world of anxiety, isolation and imaginings. The briefly ambient “Stars Sellotaped” transitions into the jagged orthogonal rhythms and intersecting trancelike themes of the aptly-named “The Fear Within”– then a surprise: The gentle, upbeat and downright conventional “Treehouse”. This song is certainly an attention-grabber, a bright light against the dark, angst-driven mood of the rest of the album.

The last third of the album kicks off with “Pygmalion’s Ladder”, the longest and most complex track on the album, with echoes of “Gutter” in its structure: driving rhythms and oriental themes, and what may be some of Duda’s most delicate and moving singing yet. The moods in the song flit from acceptance to resignation to a final astonished terror—this is the climactic song for the protagonist, for whom a line is crossed, a fate sealed….

And with the last two tracks the mood lifts: no more fear and isolation, but the unnerving electronic buzz that cuts through the otherwise delicately beautiful “Sky Drawn in Crayon” reminds us of the darkness that lies beneath. The magnificent “Walking on a Flashlight Beam” winds up the album. This is arguably one of Mariusz Duda’s finest compositions–calming, reflective, with heartbreakingly-gorgeous singing, a ray of light to end the journey.

Walking on a Flashlight Beam is very much an electronic album, more than any of the previous Lunatic Soul offerings, and this gives it a very different feel. It is dark and downright disquieting at times, but somehow never bleak: There are very ambient trance-like moments, delicate acoustic passages, and drivingly heavy industrial moments. It is dense, textural, restless with percussion. As with all the Lunatic Soul albums, there is no electric guitar, but there are overdriven effects that mimic the sound. With Mariusz Duda at the helm we can count on two things: his silky distinctive vocals, and a focus on melody—and on this album Duda has surpassed himself. As fine as his vocals have been on all previous albums, both Lunatic Soul and Riverside—apparently that was all just practice. There are vocal and melodic moments on this album that beggar description.

In short, Walking on a Flashlight Beam is a magnificent work of art. Whatever demons drove its creation, the result is an emotional tour de force of utterly inspired songwriting and performance. It compels attention and grabs onto the soul: Duda has said that his solo project is “music for the Souls whether they be Lunatic or not”—and anyone with any kind of musical soul will be unable to escape its enormous relentless capacity to make you feel. It is definitely my album of the year, and it is likely to place very high on many year-end lists.

 

The Musical Year in Review: The Short List and Honourable Mentions

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In the last post I presented the albums from 2014 that I played through once or twice; however, it was difficult to come up with a reasonable Short List because so few of those albums tweaked any real interest. I like to create a short list of albums wherein most of them have some kind of shot at making the final Ten, but this time I had to add a few no-hopers just for padding. It really was pointless, but…oh well, I did it anyway.

 

The Short List, in alphabetical order

Continue reading The Musical Year in Review: The Short List and Honourable Mentions →