Music Album Reviews - Riverside Anno Domini High Definition
Given that we lately voted into agency a twosome of neo-Nazis to the European assembly, I should likely proceed very easy on the immigrant antics, but not ever mind; Riverside are the best thing to arrive from Poland since corner stores that deal imported Cheetos. Even in a genre and view where there’s not actually a lack of good musicians, they stand out a mile for their gifts and aspiration, and you can only esteem the detail that they currently have three large albums under their belt. Four, if you encompass the singer’s solo album last year, under the title Lunatic Soul.
And yet, there’s been a minor sign of regression about the band’s vocation to this point. Having begun in prog rock territory, the band moved in the direction of steel on their third record (2007’s Rapid Eye Movement), and over the course of the transition, lost a couple of things - complexity, uniqueness, subtlety, even confidence. These are all things you’d anticipate a band to gain as they get older, but they’d taken a little step backwards. Still, Rapid Eye Movement was a very good album all the identical, and the followers appeared eager to compose off the flaws as growing pains.
Sadly, Anno Domini High Definition bears from the identical difficulties on a much deeper grade, and poorer still, it brings one foremost, unforeseen new difficulty to the table. Somehow, on their fourth album, their grab of the English dialect has got worse.
This defies all logic. Riverside have been notes melodies in their second dialect for 8 years now, and have not ever had any difficulties with composing intriguing, intelligible lyrics before. Why would they abruptly start to have difficulties now? Lord understands, but that’s what’s happened. As “Hyperactive” bursts into life following a short piano intro, the vocals emerge in stop-time, departing you not anything to aim on but the alarming, alarming lyricism. The high res next gen wonderland? I wish my sell-by designated day didn’t expire yesterday? Sung in that falsetto? Yikes. Perhaps it’s easily the case that the band are endeavouring too hard, but either way, it clangs like you wouldn’t accept as factual - I sensed myself clearly cringe hearing to it. Luckily, the lyrics do advance subsequent on, but that unfastening pathway does hurl one detail into pointed respite - each Riverside album before this had better lyrics.
It’s therefore left to the melodies to convey the album, which for the most part, it does - but afresh, the indications of regression appear. Like Rapid Eye Movement, this comprises a step down from the album before it in periods of maturity, certain thing that the new noise they insert don’t help. In detail, some of those new noise are expected to alienate their fanbase - one specific part in the middle of “Egoist Hedonist” is expected to drive some persons running for the high grounds, shouting meaningless sayings like ’sell-out’ and ‘nu-metal’. There’s Draiman-esque vocal spits and cuts, a brass part that could have been hoisted from Streetlight Manifesto, and a nimble, funky guitar riff below it - for all the world, this part could have been hoisted from Fungus Amongus.
Keyboards furthermore find their prominence on Anno Domini High Definition, much more so than on any other Riverside album. Album standout “Left Out” exhibitions this all through its instrumental second half, as does “Egoist Hedonist”, by rarely ringing out like Faithless when it’s not ringing out like Incubus. It’s tempting to admonish the band for utilising the presets on Reason (which they do not less than twice), but the keys, and the way the band combine them with their always-excellent lead guitar playing, is the most intriguing thing about this album, and the only locality where the band have booted on and progressed. Some of the body part noise move the band into Deep Purple territory, which is a outlook much more expected to apply than Disturbed.
Anno Domini is far from a awful album, and their followers can take support from the detail that the flaws on this record are very easy ones to fix. It’s likewise boosting that with their new-found fondness for keyboards, the band appears to have discovered a new sound to exploit in future. Riverside likely need one more large album to move after the assessments to Pink Floyd and Porcupine Tree that have dogged them all through their vocation, and there’s no cause to believe that their next trip won’t be the one that cements them as their own band. This, although, is a minor frustration from a band who, at one issue, appeared destined to become one of the best in the world. They still might, but they’ll need to put pieces of music like “Hyperactive” behind them, and soon.
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