Riverside – "ID.Entity"
Polish(ed) prog rock adapts Netflix's "Black Mirror"
Riverside is the only band I've given two top ratings in my career as a music journalist: One for their mesmerizingly intense "Rapid Eye Movement" album in 2007, and one for their equally intense show on the "Towards the Blue Horizon" tour 10 years later. Having recovered from the tragic death of guitarist Piotr Grudziński in 2016 – which may have made that tour so intense – the band seems to have moved in a bit of a... different direction, let's say.
The opening synth lines in "Friend or Foe?" sound like Genesis or Yes during the 80's. It's straight up rock music, but on the polished and proggy side. Bassist/vocalist Mariusz Dudas voice is distinct and tasty as always. The progression would be interesting for a rock band, and the clean verse would have been cool if it'd been released 35 years ago by Duran Duran or Tears for Fears. But for a band that used to have so much depth, this feels two-dimensional.
And as Duda asserts, "And we go round and round / Update, upload", I'm starting to get a bad feeling that I might be in for yet another semi-satirical lesson in skepticism towards that modern, digital, IT-based culture that fucking everyone's been talking about for these last 15 years. And waddya know, that's largely what "ID.Entity" is.
No, really. If you couldn't tell from a title like "Big Tech Brother", it opens with a spoken disclaimer: "Hello listener! If you want to hear to next song, you must first agree to terms and conditions. It won't hurt... Well, at least not now. Maybe later. Thank you for your cooperation". OOOOOHHHHHH, really INSIGHTFUL and THOUGHT-PROVOKING, dude! And while the music is pretty cool, going from an ugly, staccato wind emulator- and Hammond organ-based figure to an almost doom metal-esque breakdown, it only gets worse during the verse. I mean, seriously...:
"So what's it like to stick your head in the sand, to choose ignorance?
'I've nothing to hide," you say. "It's all okay and fine'
Being tracked, being parsed
Being mined, modified
Being used, being searched
Being lied to, monetized
All that we've got is not for free at all
When this life for everyone becomes too hard
What we must give in return is a bit too much
Mass control, '84, brave new world
I'm free raw material at your service, Sir"
OH MAN, LOOK AT WHAT DIGITAL CULTURE IS DOING TO US! HAS ANYONE OF YOU NOTICED THAT?? AND BY THE WAY, WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH AIRPLANE FOOD, AMIRITE GUYS??
Not unlike this album's 16-year older cousin, Porcupine Tree's "Fear of a Blank Planet", "ID.Entity" somehow manages to unite musically immaculate moments with lyrics that read like they're written by an angsty teenager.
"The Place Where I Belong" starts off with a jagged acoustic strumming and a lyric with some actual room for fucking interpretation, going from an ethereal lead over a dark synth to an almost funky, dorian rock figure. And this is where Riverside excels: In weaving natural continuums of starkly different musical expressions. But then, more of the same shit:
"Another pop-philosopher tells you how you should live
By starting from getting to know yourself
Wow – BFD, indeed
Tell me something I don't know about
Tell me something that doesn't sound
Like you just finished high school and learned by heart
A few well-known quotes from your favourite browser"
Yeah, totally, dude. And while we're at it, how about telling me something that doesn't sound like you just finished your first semester in Modern Culture and just got that whole new, edgy worldview of yours from Theodor Adorno?? And it gets worse:
"Maybe meditation app is (sic) not for me
Maybe I don't need your coaching course
Hearing that it's all my fault"
Just like their countrymen in Decapitated would do well by realizing that words like "4chan" and "funny pictures" don't exactly make for convincing death metal lyrics, Riverside would do equally well by realizing the same thing about words like "meditation app" and "coaching course". In fact, I'm wondering if Mariusz Duda even knows what coaching is, and I'm wondering what coach would tell any client that something is their fault vs. help them realize what is rightly their responsibility. But that aside, maybe, at this point, WE don't need any more people telling us how horrible digital technology has made the western world when the entire globe is constantly getting warmer and 25.000 people fucking starve to death every single day.
Maybe if those lyrics didn't keep on calling me an idiot over and over again, this album could've scored 'great' rather than 'overall acceptable, but not worth revisiting'.
It should be said at this point that "ID.Entity" isn't a downright bad album. "Landmine Blast" isn't all that preachy; its bass figure and time signatures are hella wicked, and the quiet C-part adds a nice touch of jam. And the dark "Post-Truth", (also avoiding its potential pitfalls with a title like that), sounds like a deep cut on a Tool album. But overall, not unlike this album's 16-year older cousin, Porcupine Tree's "Fear of a Blank Planet", "ID.Entity" manages to unite musically immaculate moments with lyrics that read like they're written by an angsty teenager.
When I got to know them, what made Riverside cool was that stiflingly bleak and depressive introspection that pervaded their music. Listening to "Rapid Eye Movement" was almost like starring in a horror movie set in the darkest corners of one's own mind. This one, however, is more like watching one of the most condescendingly banal episodes of "Black Mirror" on Netflix.
The reason I give this album an above-par rating, then, is solely those yummy atmospheres and that flawless instrumentation that Riverside do so well. Maybe if those lyrics didn't keep on calling me an idiot over and over again, this album could've scored 'great' rather than 'overall acceptable, but not worth revisiting'.
Rating: 3.5 out of 6
Genre: Progressive rock / metal
Release date: 20/1/2023
Label: InsideOut
Producer: Mariusz Duda