All right then, let's get this under way.
A band a lot of people give credit to, and who apparently are one of those who often straddle the prog rock/metal divide, I have only heard one full album from
Riverside, and that was, at the time, their latest, 2011's
Shrine of New Generation Slaves, or
SONGS. I seem to remember being reasonably impressed with most of it, but as usual when I listen to this band there's always something niggling me about them, like I can't quite enjoy them or say they're really great; it's like there's something missing? Never quite sure what it is. I've only heard tracks on shuffle playlists other than the album referred to above, but of those, well, some I've really liked, some I have not. A lot of the time it seems to rest on the length of the song, and Riverside tend to go with longer songs, evens suites, most of the time, or at least, most of the times I've heard them. This should not be a problem for a prog head, but I've mentioned the problem previously: a good long track is fine, a joy to listen to, while a bad long track can be torture. Sometimes Riverside's music has given me the feeling of the latter. Well, not quite, but I do recall skipping on after maybe three or four minutes of what I considered uninspiring music.
Current status: 
Quick bio: Riverside were formed in 2001 in Warsaw, Poland by four friends, and are generally led by bassist and vocalist Mariusz Duda. Over their career so far they have released seven albums, and were hit in February with the sad news of the sudden death of guitarist Piotr Grudziński.
Albums I have heard: Shrine of New Generation Slaves (2013)
As it appears the first three albums comprise a trilogy, it makes sense I guess to make them the three I listen to, though I wanted kind of to stay away from debuts and also from consecutive albums. But this seems to be the best way to go with this band, so that's what I'll do. Therefore the first one up is
Out Of Myself (2003)
First in the “Reality Dream” trilogy, there's only one really long track on it, the opener, and of the remaining eight there are two instrumentals, though both are longer than you would expect the average instrumental to be. The radio being tuned at the beginning of “The same river” harks back to the opening of Marillion's “Forgotten sons”, though I'm sure they weren't the first to do that, then it's a nice powerful dramatic almost Floydesque opening, actually kind of reminds me of
Twin Peaks, oddly. A crooning, chanting voice but as yet no vocals as we hit the second minute, but then there are still ten left. Building up nicely on synth and guitar and Duda's bass bringing it all together. Definitely the sense of something about to happen. Four minutes in and still no recognisable vocal. Must say I'm enjoying it though. I can hear the metal influences leaking through now as the guitar gets harder and sharper, running into a soaraway solo that takes us into the fifth minute.
Seven minutes in and we finally get a vocal, though to be honest had it gone on like that to the end I wouldn't really have minded. Maruisz has a nice voice; I've heard it before of course. There's that little twang in it that denotes he's other than English. Settles down in the last two minutes into a kind of acoustic ballad style, which is nice after the intensity of the first ten. Oh, and now we get a super guitar solo. Great opening track. Twelve minutes just flew by. Colour me impressed. And hopeful. The title track is much more immediate and in your face, though it's less than four minutes long. Driven on a punchy guitar with a pretty manic vocal. Like this too. Very metal, as Vivian would say. “I believe” is more laidback, relaxing with nice gentle guitar but at times quite an intense vocal from Mariusz. Could probably do without the sounds of the crowd at the beginning, and they come back in around halfway through the track too. This is another short song, relatively: just over four minutes. Nice melody.
The first instrumental, however, is over six and I'm always a little doubtful of instrumentals that long. We'll see. The ticking clock at the start is less annoying than it could be, and then my god they get going with a big heavy keyboard run as the piece hits its stride early. I quite enjoyed that, and again it didn't seem six minutes long. “Loose heart” is nice, sort of a semi-ballad that puts me in mind at times of Gary Moore, some great guitar work there. Ah. It changes to something of a manic shout-fest near the end, little jarring but it doesn't ruin it for me, while the second instrumental, shorter this time, has more sound effects (phone dial then wrong number sound) but runs on a really smooth guitar line and has a lot of almost angry power. Yeah, I like this too. And we're more than halfway through the album. Going well so far.
“In two minds” has a lovely acoustic line before the organ comes in to shoulder the melody, and reminds me of the best of post-Fish Marillion, and things stay fairly low-key for “The curtain falls”, or so they? Seems like it's taking a left turn here on the back of Duda's almost hypnotic bass and some “Run like Hell” guitar riffs. Nice. Gets really driving and powerful near the end. Excellent. No problems with this. The album ends on “OK”, which as a descriptor of this debut is well below the mark. It's a really nice, almost trip-hop song that at times even reminds me of Norwegian popsters a-ha. I feel I may have heard this as one of the songs on one of those shuffles I was talking about. Nice addition of trumpet here, really gives the song something different. Great closer to a great album.
Track Listing and Ratings
1. The same river
2. Out of myself
3. I believe
4. Reality dream
5. Loose heart
6. Reality dream II
7. In two minds
8. The curtain falls
9. OK
Well if I had any reservations about Riverside this album has gone a long way towards putting those fears to rest. A very accomplished debut – even a triumph, I might say, and it's left me eager to hear more.
Result for this album: 
Total Result so far: