WASTELAND

Riverside has become quite the household name in the prog rock community ever since their second record of Second Life Syndrome. While they may not be as big as Opeth, Dream Theater, Mastodon, and TOOL, Riverside had proved themselves as a pretty grand metal group from Poland. However, in recent years, I have felt they had become less of the giants they seemed to be in their heyday of the 2000s through mid 2010s, with their last really stellar release being Love, Fear and the Time Machine. Ever since, it has seemed they are playing a safety game, which has continued to their latest of ID.Entity, an album I thought was very disappointing. In fact, I can pinpoint where Riverside started to become less thrilling with their 2018 album of Wasteland.

This would be the first record without long time member Piotr Grudziński, who had been on guitar ever since their debut of Out Of Myself, before his tragic death in 2016. Before getting Maciej Meller of Quidam for ID.Entity, lead vocalist Mariusz Duda took up the mantle as lead guitarist for Wasteland.

While I may not find this album to be the best, I can see quite a number of good things on here. For one, I do enjoy the more mellower tracks of Guardian Angel, Lament, and River Down Below. While I may not think they reach the heights of Time Machine, I still really enjoy them, especially Lament. The more prog metal stuff like Acid Rain, Vale Of Tears, The Struggle for Survival, and the title track also do a good job. Mariusz ain't a bad guitarist by any stretch, creating very nice, and very moody strums and solos that have quite a lot of weight.

I also dig the production. I know some might find it a tad less grand in comparison to Second Life Syndrome or Anno Domini High Definition, but I think Wasteland does have some great mixing, especially within the more longer tracks.

However, speaking of such, I feel as though the tracks never really have all the right strengths for me to really love them. I do like them, but at the same time a lot of them feel weak in retrospect. After Love, Fear and the Time Machine, I was expecting the band to go into an opposite direction from their contemporaries of Porcupine Tree, going into a more contemporary prog limelight, moving away from prog metal, though I can respect Duda for not wanting Riverside to sound like Lunatic Soul. Even then, though, I feel like Wasteland should've been a great opportunity to expand the horizons, creating songs that were both a mix of the mellower contemporary stuff, with the hard edged prog metal. In a way, we did get that with Lament, but none of the tracks really explore such an idea. Either they are mellow and atmospheric art rock numbers, or they are heavy prog metal. The division kind of confuses and disappoints me, as it seemed like the perfect direction the band should've taken, especially with the longer tracks. Heck, I'd say it feels weird for their sound in general, as even before Time Machine, with their heavier, more prog metal oriented records they still managed to spice things up by getting more mellower at times. Look at the title track for Second Life Syndrome or Hybrid Times for example.

The band definitely feel very lost here. While I do not want to blame this on the death of Grudziński, as it feels wrong too, I think in a way his sad passing does play a part. I feel it's like a Syd Barrett leaving Pink Floyd situation. Both Riverside and Pink Floyd lost one of their founding guitarists, with Syd leaving due to drug abuse, and Piotr passing away, causing both bands to try and figure out what they could do from here. Unlike both though, where Pink Floyd decided to do things all weird and crazy with More and Ummagumma, Riverside sat within their own bubble, unmoving like a statue. Though in a world of prog, with nothing but movement, their statue was chipped away, further and further, creating two underwhelming albums, both playing a game of safety in numbers, with ID.Entity being probably their worst record in their catalog in my opinion.

I do hope Riverside can manage to find themselves out of this rubble and find their own Atom Heart Mothers, or Meddle, or Obscured By Clouds. They have made stellar music in the past, especially Duda's other projects, so I know they have it in them. That being said, Wasteland is still a pretty rough album, and while there are things to like on here, such things can still feel quite middle of the road, especially for Riverside standards.

Best track: Lament

Worst track: The Day After