Seeing Polish progressive rock band Riverside at the Progpower festival was one of the absolute highlights of last year. You can imagine that I was very anxious to review Out Of Myself, their debut album. It took some time before I got my hands on a copy since all copies were sold out about two minutes after the performance at Progpower had ended! After a couple of weeks of waiting the album finally arrived from Poland. To be honest, the album didn’t have the impact I had hoped for, at least at first... My expectations might have been too high and the performance I had witnessed too intense. The production of the album might have something to do with it as well. The sound is a little bit too smooth and too polished and therefore part of the rough and powerful presentation of the band is partly undone on the silver disc.

In comparison to other productions one might consider Out Of Myself to be perfectly fine and not overly polished at all, if you’ve seen this band live you will probably understand what I’m talking about. You don’t have to listen closely to come up with several bands that have influenced Riverside. The good thing is that neither of these references is dominating and due to the talent of the musicians all ‘familiar’ sounds have an original twist. All in all the music of Riverside can best be described as a spiced up Porcupine Tree. Main characteristics are the atmospheric soundscapes, the complex but catchy instrumental intersections and the prominent role of the excellent keyboards. The album grows on you every time you play it and that’s one of the main characteristic of quality.