Poland’s Progressive Rock shooting stars RIVERSIDE have undergone a highly interesting and purposeful progression throughout their musical career so far and should now manage to reach a next splendid height in terms of dynamic songwriting with their newest, highly anticipated fifth studio album release “Shrine of New Generation Slaves”.



Commencing with densely atmospheric and partly dark Metal soundscapes on their early steps back in 2001, this quartet effortlessly struck a nerve with the changing prospects of the new Prog Metal generation that embraced acts like Tool, Porcupine Tree or Opeth for their instrumentally technical, yet deeply emotional and still always powerful, fresh take on the style. RIVERSIDE quickly morphed into one of the leading acts within the new European Prog Metal movement with the release of their “Reality Dream” trilogy, which encompasses the band’s much acclaimed first three releases, “Out of Myself” (2003), “Second Life Syndrome” (2005) and most remarkably “Rapid Eye Movement” (2007).



Having toured in support of scene-icons Dream Theater as well as playing several headlining runs all across Europe finally fully established RIVERSIDE both in the Metal and the Prog-Rock realms and their latest album release, “Anno Domini High Definition“, entered the sales charts in Poland at # 1 (Gold album status by now!), Germany at # 94 and The Netherlands on # 58 upon its release in 2009 to solidify the band’s ever-blooming momentum within their growing fanbase. In 2011, RIVERSIDE followed up by releasing a special EP entitled “Memories in My Head” in order to celebrate the band’s 10th anniversary of existence and once again toured restlessly all across the world, with one of many highlights being their appearance on the main stage of Poland’s gigantic Woodstock festival in July of 2011, a spectacular event attended by more than half a million (!) people.



Forwarding into the present, “Shrine of New Generation Slaves” (or “SoNGS” for easier referencing) was recorded, mixed and mastered through the months of March and June as well as September and October of 2012 at Serakos studio in Warsaw, Poland (where also the “Reality Dream” trilogy took shape) with Magda Srzednicka and Robert Srzednicki. “SONGS” offers more than 50 minutes of high-class RIVERSIDE music divided into 8 songs, which don’t just clearly reflect a further developed, modern take on the band’s charismatic trademark elements, but also effectively adds further vibes of the Classic Rock segment as well as jazzy art-rock bits to the ever-challenging mix that RIVERSIDE has always stood for, maybe just less standard metallic and also less complex, without meaning less progressive.



RIVERSIDE’s Mariusz Duda comments on the “SoNGS” effort as follows: “With this release we are trying to prove, mostly to ourselves, that we can still surprise with something, and what's most important - create an album that would become our showpiece, music-wise and lyrics-wise. We wanted to start a new, more mature chapter and focused again more on melody and organic rock groove than before. The title might sound a bit intricate, but the acronym will definitely explain what we did with our music this time."



Conceptually, it is an album as intense and introspective as ever before with RIVERSIDE, but there is also a strong and very obscure social component to things this time around, as Duda explains the record’s theme and title: “It’s based on the fact that we all hear almost everyday from friends and close people how unhappy they are, how they hate their jobs, how they don't have a time for this or that, how time flies and how they actually feel like slaves in their lives. I thought it was a good option to write about that kind of unhappiness and this “new generation slavery”, where people seem to be unable to take control over their own lives”.



Don’t miss out on following RIVERSIDE into this next chapter of their creative process and on making up your own mind about the intense listening experience that “SoNGS” offers…