To vocalist/bassist Mariusz Duda, his band is much more than a vehicle for his own creativity. To him, Riverside stands for a deep awareness of life, a specific kind of thinking, feeling and acting. Which is why he aptly characterises his band as a “new generation of progressive music”, although his more detailed description culminates in a clearly more poetic choice of words: “Riverside is a way of expressing reflections, dreams and fantasies through music”, he explains, adding: “It’s a concept of revealing emotions, an escape from a grey or unnaturally, excessively coloured reality. It is a music inspired by a particular moment, a place, a thought, or a word, a figment of our own and other people’s imagination. It’s joy and sadness, a whisper and a scream.” All these emotions become apparent on Rapid Eye Movement, the band’s current release and part three of a trilogy that started in 2003 with Out Of Myself and continued two years later with the sensational Second Life Syndrome.

The band was founded in 2001 by Mariusz Duda, guitarist Piotr Grudzinski and drummer Piotr Kozieradzki. Following the recording of their debut album, Out Of Myself, keyboardist Michal Lapaj joined Riverside to complete today’s line-up, which impresses with its great individuality and the impeccable craftsmanship of all four band members. Experts refer to Riverside as a stylistic mix of Tool, Porcupine Tree and Dream Theater, praising the tasteful and diverse instrumentation of their songs. But although there are definite cross references to important recordings from the history of prog rock and the songs prove that the musicians allowed themselves to be inspired by this genre’s long tradition, their very own fingerprint, their trademark remains unmistakeable. Riverside have a special feel for atmospheres, continue to forge atmospherically dense arches and have a playful way of working with dynamics and movement. “Most of all, we like to concentrate on emotions, moods, melodies and good arrangements, and I think that this is what people like about our music. We definitely don’t want to copy or imitate anybody, we’re too old to do that, and we simply have too many inspirations. I believe we’re on a good way to defining our own style. I guess Rapid Eye Movement also proves that.”

In fact Riverside’s latest recording is their most accomplished and diverse to date. The band expertly vary the degree of toughness in their songs, always homogeneously adapting the music to their story. “There are three different ways of reflecting the loneliness of the main hero and his struggle with himself. It’s about loneliness, that we’re still looking for our true selves, that we still want to change. The story is about a man who probably did something wrong in the past and started to live in his own ‘reality dreamworld’. There’s a lot of room for interpretation. I think Rapid Eye Movement is the most mature of all our albums.”