Dianoya are a new band on
us at RTM. Like tonight’s headliners they hail from Poland and also in common
with Riverside they peddle a brand of metal that is best pre-fixed with the
word “prog”. Their roots are, perhaps,
slightly more metallic, though. Guitarist Jan Niedzielski gives his tastes away
with his sporting of a Pantera tshirt, for example. Their songs – most of which
are epic in nature – are damn fine. “The Genius” lives up to its title, while
“Far Cry” might borrow a title from Rush, but also shares sentiments with them
too.
New York’s Jolly are next
up and if ever a band is ironically named its them. Archly miserable and dark
from the get-go there are precious few laughs in their 45 minutes. In fairness,
singer Anadale explains mid-set that they were lucky to get their new album
done at all, given that it was being recorded in the home of Louis Abramson,
which was then destroyed by Hurricane Sandy. Their’s was an interesting rather
than outright jaw-dropping set. “When Everything’s Perfect” is excellent track,
but perhaps best of all was closing number “The Pattern” which saw the band cut
loose and really lock into a groove.
“Into this world I came/
Full of fear/ And crying all the time” so begins the opening track on
Riverside’s new “Shrine Of New Generation Slaves” album. That alone tells you
that, like Jolly, there isn’t going to be many songs with the lyrics “maybe”
and “baby” in there (although it does contain the immortal line “no, I don’t
have a stomach ache, its just my face”). At this point RTM should probably
declare bias as, since hearing the band for the first time late last year, we
have basically fallen in love the four piece. “….Slave” is the best record of
the year so far and if there’s a better one that comes out at all then we want to
hear it.
All that remains, then, is
for the band to deliver a gig of the magnitude we are hoping for. Are they
going to let us down…not a bit of it!
After the “Into this
world….” etc starts us off the band then deliver the next two faultless tracks
from “….Slave” before pausing for breath. The first thing to notice is that
they are not only much heavier live than we expected, they have also taken
great care to get everything right as from the lightshow to the sound, the
entire show is exemplary.
There is a stunning guitar
solo from Piotr Grudziński in “We Got Used To Us” while arguable set highlight
“Egoist/Hedonist” is quite marvelous, as is set closer “Escalator Shrine” with
its blasts of Hammond Organ from Michał Łapaj
There are a couple of well deserved encores as “Left Out”
and “Conceiving You” bring things to halt, but this has been 90 odd minutes to
savour.
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