RIVERS GONE DRY (E)

Strawberry Fields is one of the many projects by the Polish musician Wojtek Szadkowski, who is especially known for his work with Collage and Satellite. Another of his projects is Peter Pan. Robin, the beautiful singer in Strawberry Fields happens to be the girlfriend of Peter Pan’s guitarist Radek Chwieralski and thus she became involved in this project. The other band members are the same as in Satellite: Sarhan Kubeisi (guitar), Jarek Michalski (bass) and Krzys Palczwewski (keyboards). Szadkowksi plays drums, acoustic guitar and keyboards on Rivers Gone Dry and he wrote all of the songs. With a little help from Palczwewski he also produced this album. The lyrics were written by Marta Kniewska (Robin), who makes her debut as a singer and lyricist. Soft xylophone-like sounds open Your Story and Robin’s fragile and sensual voice starts singing with a lot of echo and reverb. At the end of her line she's abruptly cut off, an unusual production technique. The chorus is melodic and supported by strong riffs of Kubeisi’s guitar. As with Satellite the vocals are often recorded twice, mostly a few tones lower than the melody line. The genre is pop-rock - in a good sense - with a little bluesy touch. Electronics and keyboards dominate the opening of Close, which for my part could have been a Satellite-song having the same characteristics and melancholy. The chorus again is somewhat stronger, more rock oriented and sung by a distorted voice. The title track is a beautiful blend of symphonic music, good pop music as for instance works by Depeche Mode and melodic electronic music. The next track Fool opens with just vocals and a little bit of organ, secondly an acoustic guitar and during the chorus drums, bass and electric guitar. The music is in the vein of The Cranberries with some catchy guitar solos by Kubeisi. In Moon we go back to the sixties as far as atmosphere, guitar, bass and drums are concerned. The softly rumbling organ contributes to this ‘oldies feel’, but Robin’s voice is definitely of current times. In the second half some string arrangements can be heard. A fine pop track is Beautiful, which is, apart from the organ, in the vein of The Cranberries again. A bit ghostly is the opening of Open Your Eyes: dark synth tones and an almost whispering voice of Robin soothes and almost hypnotizes. In between a catchy, much more up-tempo chorus with powerful riffs of Kubeisi’s guitar. Almost the same kind of opening can be heard in Maybe and a ditto chorus as in the previous track. Sometimes Agua De Annique comes into mind, although the voice of Anneke van Giersbergen is more powerful and she has a different vibe. The longest and best track is saved for last. Flow has it all: atmosphere, symphonic sounds, a little progressive and very melodic altogether. Slow and tasteful music that keeps you longing for more and one or two tracks in this musical style would have made the album even stronger. As in other tracks the combination of just one minor and one flat chord are the fundamentals of the chorus, sung by Robin by multiple layers of her vocals and Kubeisi plays some very nice Pink Floyd-like guitar.

Rivers Gone Dry is a very nice pop-rock album. It's not as progressive as Satellite with less frequent changes in tempo, barely any really long instrumental pieces and the basic melodies are fairly straight forward. It’s the combination that works and it’s my belief this album has the potential to appeal to many others than just prog fans. Fans of Satellite and other neo-prog acts should listen before buying, but people with an interest in good pop-rock with a symphonic touch, should definitely check it out.