SHRINE OF NEW GENERATION SLAVES

Somehow Riverside just seem to keep on getting better and better, with the new album being a case in point. As I write this it has had 73 ratings on progarchives and is rated as the second best album of the year so far. Now, I know it's only January but it won't be far from that mark at the end of the year I'm sure. The four musicians have now been together for a long time and it shows. Production is yet again just wonderful, and not only has the music grown in maturity and presence but so has Mariusz's vocals. This is a band that has really come of age and they mix up bouncy hard rock from the Seventies with a much more laid-back Floydian feel. For some reason I keep thinking of Opeth, although they are nothing alike, so it must just be due to approach as opposed to sound.

"Celebrity Touch" is a fun bounce along rock number with great Hammond that apart from the vocals could be classic Spock's Beard. This is a prog album that is guaranteed to make the listener smile from the first note to the very last and there is only one thing to do when it ends, and that is to play the whole thing again. The louder I played it the more I enjoyed it, as the guys really know how to hit that perfect vibe. Highly recommended. It doesn't get much better than this. www.insideout.de