Riverside - Shrine of New Generation Slaves
<BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!> “Riverside, mothafucka!”
Wait a minute… This isn’t a new incarnation of the legendary Towpath… Dammit! Ray tricked me into reviewing another Prog album [I’m a bastard like that. -Editor]. Oh well, best to ruthlessly make fun of it and move on with my life. Dammit! It isn’t going to be that easy. Truth be told, these Polish Prog Rock veterans are actually quite capable of penning a decent tune when they aren’t going all A Beautiful Mind on that ass. Despite an almost complete lack of heaviness and songs that are often waaay longer than they need to be, this quixotic quartet cannot be written off entirely. A significant portion of Shrine of New Generation Slaves —did anyone else notice that spells out SONGS?— is undeniably moving and beautifully written. That is when they resist the urge to pour the crazy gravy all over everything. Repeated listens have revealed a bad song/good song pattern. Opener “New Generation Slave” is basically a 4-minute intro, but this ultra-mellow appetizer laced with random reflective-thought-vomit gives way to the album’s finest moment. “The Depths of Self-Delusion” is truly an amazing cut. Dark, catchy, and damn near impossible to only listen to once, this gem could probably be a modern-day Katatonia song in some kind of alternate reality. But then “Celebrity Touch” follows with a main riff so corny it could pass for the between-scene bullshit on That ’70s Show. I’m cursed with visions of Topher Grace jumping in slo-mo as I type! Meanwhile, I much prefer Barry Manilow-style piano ballad “We Got Used to Us” and the bass wizardry of the ethereal “Deprived” over the Funk-infused Rush filler of “Feel Like Falling” and 13-minute lullaby “Escalator Shrine” (replete with every spaced-out ’70s Prog cliche in the book). So there you have it. Every other song is a winner. A record of gently giant peaks and low, meandering valleys. If there’s one saving constant, it’s that frontman Mariusz Duda’s hypnotic singing voice and despondent lyrical outlook are consistently all-pro throughout. If they could ever dare to trim some of the Prog-for-the-sake-of-Prog fat, Riverside would become a truly elite artistic force.
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