This album proved to be a tough one. Even more so for RIVERSIDE themselves who had the hard task of releasing a collection of songs without founder Piotr Grudziński who left us unexpectedly some 2 years ago. Our first ‘Wasteland’ listen happened right after the album was released at the very end of September but it took some more weeks of getting used to it before us sitting down for a proper review. Maybe we have the grey Autumn skies to thank for helping us embrace the album’s melancholic and very peculiar atmosphere.

 

Of course, we expected PIOTR’s departure to influence this release. To fill it up with sadness. And we were right. RIVERSIDE have never been a happy hedonistic band but just a glimpse at titles like 'Guardian Angel’, ‘Lament’, ‘The Night Before’ and ‘The Day After’ is enough to make one realize this is going to be a collection of very minor key songs.

 

Thus it comes as little or no surprise, that the best tracks here are indeed the saddest, soul-crushing ones (the album opening acapella ‘The Day After’ or the overtly balladic ‘Guardian Angel’) while much more traditional takes on prog rock prove to be much less effective (listen closely to ‘The Struggle for Survival’ and ‘Vale of Tears’)..

 

Still, there are no real mistakes in ‘Wasteland’. The album sounds truly competent, brilliantly recorded and produced, boasting progressive passages that could easily some rival bands blush. The ever improving vocal performance of MARIUSZ DUDA is a particularly noticeable feature to be found throughout the album. 

 

Problem is that besides the great songs and passages, there are quite a few that could by no means be compared to the ‘Shrine of New Generation Slaves’ quality, for example. And while the very, very PINK FLOYD-esque solo in ‘River Down Below’ is nothing but beautiful, the technically perfect ‘Wasteland’ and ‘The Struggle for Survival’ are overall nice but nothing more than that, really.

 

Dark, melancholic and quite out of balance, ‘Wasteland’ is by no means a perfect collection but an honest and true one, enough to make us believe in RIVERSIDE’s future after the departure of PIOTR.