RAPID EYE MOVEMENT

If a band fails to progress musically, musicians should at least change their sound. If they fail to change their manner, they should at least write few catchy melodies or improve their level of musicianship. If they refuse to do it too, they may lose some fans. Unfortunately, RIVERSIDE is that kind of band for me now. It’s not like they disappointed me bitterly, I still like their almost brilliant SLS, but I won’t recommend any other album of them to get immediately.

REM is a huge step back for RIVERSIDE. It sounds like their debut, which had some nice songs, but was hardly as much progressive/innovative/interesting as SLS. This time they’ve returned to more vast and less tight sound, and some songs sound simply like fillers, lyrically chewing over and over the same old themes (split personality/paranoia/insomnia/you continue) and musically running through the same old clichés (oriental riffs, background keyboards, predictable simple structures etc). “Beyond the Eyelids” has actually reminded of good old RIVERSIDE first (wonderful intro), but later it mutilated into psychedelic stuff a-la mid-period PORCUPINE TREE. Damn, I don’t want PT, I want RIVERSIDE!!! And further it goes that way. Closing 13-min long “epic” is another psyche trip; nothing related to “Second Life Syndrome”/”Dance with Shadow” kind of thing, more like “The Same River” from debut but played in reverse. I wonder what the level of bonustracks on special edition is, but I have no further wish to dig deeper into RIVERSIDE (to be fairly honest). Not recommended if you didn’t quite like SLS, but not terribly bad after all.