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Old 12-30-2016, 05:38 PM   #15 (permalink)
Trollheart
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Ok then, let's wrap this up before the year ends. We're two for two so far, let's see if we can make it three.

Rapid Eye Movement (2007)

The final part of the Reality Dream trilogy, the album is split into two separate sections, the first consisting of the first five tracks and called Fearless while the second is called Fearland and covers the final four. The album opens with “Beyond the eyelids”, with a nice soft psych feel to the music before a big organ crashes in on the back of heavy guitar, and it really kicks up. A long enough opener, just shy of eight minutes, and much of the first half is taken up with an instrumental jam. Yeah again it's good but I can feel my attention wandering (probably doesn't help that I'm websurfing while doing this, but really, an album that's good enough should be able to divert me back to it, and, well, this ain't doing it) and on we go into the second track, which is again okay but I can't say anything really positive about it, other than that it doesn't suck. Completely.

Yeah, that one just kinda went by without leaving much of an impression on me. I feel I know “02 panic room” (why the figures in front of it? Is it sponsored by the big telephone company?) before, and yes, it's a good song, even a great song. A real cut above everything that has gone so far, though in fairness that's not really saying too much. Oh, thought that piano was starting a new track, but it seems we're still on “02 panic room”: almost the reverse of the last time, when I didn't notice one track had ended and the other begun. Best on the album so far, definitely. May have some competition though, immediately, from “Schizophrenic prayer”, a real slowburner, a kind of concealed menace in the song. Really like this one too. Maybe the album is taking an upswing? All right, the next track is also great. Opening with an acapella vocal before it explodes all over the place, “Parasomnia” is both a great slice of prog and yet another mixing of words to make a pretty cool one. The whispering voice over the piano in the sixth minute is very effective.

And so into part two, Fearland, we go, with a very soft and gentle opener which goes under the title of “Through the other side”, a very low-key, almost sotto voce vocal with a really nice understated acoustic guitar and just a little light percussion. “Embryonic” is also driven on acoustic guitar, and I find myself wondering if this second part is all going to be low-key, introspective, ballady material? This has the same almost muttered vocal, but then we get to “Cybernetic pillow” and it's picking up speed and power again. Some pretty crazy guitar there near the end. The closing track then is the epic, thirteen minutes plus of “The ultimate trip”. It's a good closer, though I would question its length, something that is often a failing among prog rock bands.

Track Listing and ratings

Fearless
1. Beyond the eyelids
2. Rainbow box

3. 02 panic room
4. Schizophrenic prayer
5. Parasomnia

Fearland
6. Through the other side
7. Embryonic
8. Cybernetic pillow

9. The ultimate trip

I worried when I began drifting as the album began, but like any good album should it quickly demanded my attention back from the third track and more or less held it from then on. I would say I'm still not totally sold on this band – they can ramble on at times – but on the basis of these three albums I'm willing to keep listening to them in the hope that that special album will hit.

Result for this album:

Total result:

Final Verdict (for now) on Riverside:
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