Riverside

Since their debut, Riverside has always carried the 'Porcupine Tree's little brother act' label. Yet, with that main comparison now on hiatus during extensive Steven Wilson solo work and touring underway, this may be the opportunity for the formerly mentioned four-piece group to step forward and make a significant impact in the international progressive rock community…

This remarkable set presents the recorded account of the first five years in the history of the Polish Prog band Riverside, which is the only second-generation neo-Prog Polish band to earn any international attention…

Drawn together by a shared love of heavy metal and progressive rock, Riverside emerged in the early 2000s in Warsaw, Poland. Founded by mutual friends who intended to use their backgrounds in metal to explore new territory in prog rock along the lines of Dream Theater, Porcupine Tree, and Tool, the quartet began creating spacious and experimental music with a metal edge on their 2003 debut, Out of Myself. They hit their stride in the late 2000s, topping the Polish charts in 2009 with their fourth full-length outing, Anno Domini High Definition. The untimely death of guitarist Piotr Grudziński in 2016 put the band's future in jeopardy, but they reconvened in 2018 as a trio for the studio LP Wasteland…

Riverside are one of the most universally acclaimed bands on this site, with all four of their album releases to date comfortably achieving in excess of 4 stars. It is perhaps surprising then that this is the band's first DVD release, and thus the first chance most of us have had to witness them live…

Johnny Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, musician and author, born February 26, 1932 in Kingsland, Arkansas, USA as J.R. Cash…

Alongside Willie Mae Ford Smith, Sister Rosetta Tharpe is widely acclaimed among the greatest Sanctified gospel singers of her generation; a flamboyant performer whose music often flirted with the blues and swing, she was also one of the most controversial talents of her day, shocking purists with her leap into the secular market – by playing nightclubs and theaters, she not only pushed spiritual music into the mainstream, but in the process also helped pioneer the rise of pop-gospel…

Harvest Moon continues the Votum tradition of giving melancholy atmospheres, some well-done prog metal sections, and (most importantly to them) soul-splitting lyrics. Yes, Votum has some of the best lyrics in the business. They really grab your heart by the neck and force you to feel something…

Unquestionably, the best album under Cannonball's name. The quintet/sextet albums are mostly geared to a more pop market and contain much "packaged" soul and funk, while the dates Cannonball shared with Miles, Bags, Bill Evans, Coltrane, and Gil Evans often find him deferring to or competing against musical temperaments not wholly sympathetic with his own…

By the time of the Somethin' Else session, Cannonball's sound had considerably more nuance, with darker tones and more brooding solos. Nonetheless, the Parker influence continued to shine, and the whole session has a sense of relaxation that results in music that is truly joyous.