Yes me too
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https://translate.google.ca/translate?hl=en&sl=pl&u=https://mlwz.pl/recenzje/plyty/20402-riverside-wasteland&prev=searchRiverside - WastelandMaurycy Nowakowski ,
17/09/2018 Riverside - Wasteland
In a few days on the shelves of music stores will be the long-awaited release, the seventh album Riverside - one of the most important post-progressive groups in Europe. "Wasteland" is a completely new hand, probably the beginning of a new trilogy, and certainly the most important and the most difficult attempt to face the lack of Piotr Grudziński, a guitarist who died unexpectedly more than two and a half years ago. In order to look at this new album with a sufficiently wide context, we have to return to the events from three years ago.
Autumn 2015. After nearly fifteen years of existence and the release of the sixth, best accepted album, which was then "Love, Fear and the Time Machine", Riverside had theoretically had the right to experience some comfort. Maturity, ingenuity and consistency have resulted in artistic and commercial success, as well as a marked increase in interest from a diverse public, both Polish and foreign. It was the culmination of a long, bumpy road to success, but the satisfaction did not last long and the team mentioned above did not have time to experience it. The rest is a story that everyone knows and can not forget. At the end of February 2016, the guitarist Piotr Grudziński dies for a moment before his fortieth first birthday and a large concert tour, which was to strengthen Riverside's position. Recent successes covered a long and gloomy shadow of despair, and the year 2016 instead of an ambitious world tour, she described mourning.
The concerts were canceled, and the team, already in the three-person squad, had to answer themselves and fans to the question of whether there was still a "tomorrow" for Riverside after this loss. There was no doubt. Wyrwa after the death of December, both emotional and musical, was enormous, and his contribution to the unique character of the band's music was difficult to overestimate. It was necessary to decide whether and how to rebuild the team. The fate of Riverside weighed for several months. Also thanks to the great support of thousands of fans from around the world, the group finally decided to take this glove thrown by fate. Mariusz Duda, Piotr Kozieradzki and Michał Łapaj resumed Riverside's activity in 2017 as a trio, and Maciej Meller took the free position of the guitarist on the concert tour. Trio plus Meller passed the concert test. The team in such a composition perfectly coped with playing old material. The second equally important exam was to be a new album. Duda, Kozieradzki and Łapaj were not responsible for sharing music with new music. It was their exam, they decided to approach him in three, not putting on the ranks of a permanent substitute / successor of December. The guitars were supposed to take over mainly the leader and the main composer Mariusz Duda, and only in a few places give the field guests invited to Maciej Meller and Mateusz Owczarkowi. Work on the new material was supposed to run under the slogan: there are three of us left, so we have to manage in three!
It may sound controversial, but the trauma for Mariusz, Mittloff and Michał was the death of a companion, could either end the story of Riverside, or just the opposite, harden the group and become a fuel to record a very good album. After all, music is a creative "matter" extremely emotional and created even to convey those states, which can not be conveyed with a word or a particular image. And so in the mind of Mariusz Duda final shapes began to take the idea for an album in a post-apocalyptic climate, quite universal, but let's face it - strongly also referring to the "end of the world", which was the death of Piotr for the riversaid environment.
The genesis of the uprising is briefly reminded, so let's move to the merits of the already finished work, the seventh studio full-length Riverside album under the title "Wasteland". The album is not easy, does not come in as smoothly and smoothly as its predecessor ("Love, Fear and the Time Machine"), a rough album, certainly very dark, heavy both thematically and musically, sometimes dirtier and feisty, at moments very moving, slowly showing your numerous advantages. But most of all, the album carrying perhaps the largest emotional load in the current Riverside achievements.
In terms of form and design, the band largely continues its evolutionary path, proposing nine tracks, none of which exceeds ten minutes. Which does not mean that the album lacks complex, complex compositions. Riverside already on the previous album proved that he can so compress ideas to create an intense and diverse five-six-minute song and not to stretch the composition to the framework of a few-minute suite. A great example is the already known "Vale of Tears", but this type of song is also the second on the album "Acid Rain". The first three minutes of this issue are heavy, dark gaming, based on a surprisingly feisty metal riff and sombre keyboard chords over which the monumental, slightly Gothic vocal of Duda is dominating. After three minutes the arrangement gently melts, nice, singing guitar performances appear, Catch reaches for a lighter palette of colors, and Duda's catchy vocals (they should be great at concerts) make the end of the composition almost optimistic. This note of optimism, lightness and space is an exception on the album. In the majority of dynamic works we deal with a very tight, dense and raw sound, and the usually responsible for space Łapaj still compresses compositions, using low and dark sounds and serving non-contrasting parts, and more often complementing with guitars. This is the idea for the sound of this album and the band consistently keeps it. If music is to be told about the post-apocalyptic world, speech could not be said about the sound space and pastel melodies from "Love, Fear and the Time Machine".
The strongest points of the record are, in my opinion, two "longitudes". The title track, over 8-minute "Westland", was the only song on the record constructed as part of the Riverside mini-suite. The folk start based on the energetic theme served by the acoustic guitar does not herald a storm that will unfold in the fourth minute. The dignified vocals of Dudy and pleasant inclusions served by Lapy on the piano are supposed to bring to mind the Slavic tradition of constructing ballads, but also the fans of Jethro Tull can feel the warmth at heart. At the end of the third minute, this folk tale breaks the dynamic entrance of Mittloff's drums and art-rock broken motif that will smoothly move the band to the second part of the song. A powerful guitar riff instantly transfers the band into metal regions and for the next minute "Wasteland" in the dynamic instrumental part will be balancing between artrock and metal. The idyllic folk atmosphere will come back again in the fifth and sixth minutes, but the track does not lose anything from its drama anyway. Although Duda offers a gentle, almost "feminine" vocal, and the guitar in place of riffs exposes melodies, anxiety rises between the sounds. In the seventh minute, the final blow occurs. Even more sharply exposed, the massive metal riff, strong, ruthless blow by Kozieradzki and piercing sounds of Kejija's keyboards squeeze the largest and last decks of weight and dynamics dormant in "Wasteland".
If you can say "Wasteland" with a grain of salt in a new, more mature and compressed "Dance With the Shadow", I can not find a counterpart in the Riverside discography for the second composition I am honoring. And I think it's an advantage, because in my opinion, the band preparing a piece like "Struggle for Survive" enters new areas of instrumental playing. It does not have much in common with the series "Reality Dream", and completely nothing to do with ambient songs. If "Reality Dream" drew more from progmetal stylistics, so "Struggle for Survive" is dirty, more guitar, raw playing, whose roots I would look for in the "alternative" or progression of the turn of the sixties and seventies. Once it is the raging, sometimes glaring, riffs served by Duda, a bit of a Frippish guitarist Meller's part, mature and strongly scoring Kozieradzki and, as usual, the various parties of Łapyja create a sound cocktail like a very intense, highly absorbing soundtrack. I have not heard such Riverside yet, and I would definitely like this idea to continue to be built and constructed by the band.
I suppose that many fans will win the fifth on the album "Lament", to which we will see the music video at any moment. Formally, the gunpowder team is not here, but a good song, with catchy and heart-catching original melody is always worth its weight in gold. "Lament" is a rock ballad with a strong, monumental chorus, which will probably be beautifully carried in concert halls. The striking phrases of guitars and thumping drums nicely complements the noble sound of the violin from the hand of Michał Jelon. With the rest of his short but moving solo part crowns this work.
All three ballads sound noble and poignant. Fans who value Riverside mainly for songs in the style of "In Two Minds", "Acronym Love" or "Time Travelers" should be satisfied. It is true that we have a surprising vocal novelty, because Duda in the first ballad "Guardian Angel" is experimenting with low singing in the style of Nick Cave, but the effect is as if these low registers were for him everyday bread. This is a nice song with a memorable acoustic motif. The second ballad "River Down Below" is already a bit more complex song. It begins with an intimate, almost lullaby fragment, in which we hear only simple performances of acoustic guitar and Duda's voice, but in the second minute the composition changes a bit of character. A leading melody emerges, the drums enter, and in the background you can hear a pleasantly sobbing guitar. The icing on the cake here is really nice, subtle and intelligently matched Meller's solo.
The strongest emotional blow is waiting for the listener at the end of the album. I will risk the thesis that the ballad "The Night Before" is the most heart-catching song in the band's entire output. Sincere, raw, charged with live emotions, simple piano chords served by Łapyja and Duda's warm voice, these are components of this essentially simple yet extremely powerful and evocative composition. For obvious reasons, I just wanted to hear this Riverside. Simple, raw and hellishly honest. More beautifully this album could not end. Yes, the piano ballad can also be the grand finale of the album.
"Wasteland" is a unique album. It is burdened with the tragic events of the recent past, was recorded by a team that suffered an extremely painful personal loss and on the one hand was supposed to be an exam, and on the other proof that Riverside can go forward without December. It was with great relief that I received these nine new compositions, fifty minutes of premiere music at a very high level, both artistic and emotional. "Wasteland" is a bit different Riverside. Riverside, who does not try to pretend to be the same band. At the moment, it is a band after the breaks, a band with a scar, suggesting music that is dirtier, striking, aggressive, stricter and narrow than sounds. The space and melody of "Love, Fear and the Time Machine" disappeared, the darkness characteristic of "Second Life Syndrome" returned, and some rawness reminiscent of the group's first albums. And Mariusz Duda as a songwriter dealing with the subject of death, the wandering of souls, life after life - in which it may be difficult to believe, because these topics have already moved several times - he has never been so credible.
The final exam for the band will be an autumn tour that will answer the question of how this new material will sound live. But I'm quite calm about that. Apparently, all the material will be in the autumn set, and I bet that a few premiere compositions from the march will become its very strong points. To paraphrase the title of my favorite song from "Wasteland" - riversajdzi struggled for survival. And they survived.
Topic: Riverside - New album ID.Entity out January 20 2023 (Read 134130 times)
