Riviera Keeps Rolling Along

By Scott Smith in Arts & Entertainment on Apr 1, 2005 3:42PM

The second album from both Chicago rock quintet Riviera and its label Glorious Noise Records gets the big-time release party treatment this Saturday. We’ve been grooving on a preview copy of At The End Of The American Century... for the last couple weeks and it should come at little surprise to those who’ve been following the story that it's a pastiche of the various cultural touchstones that get hashed out on the GLONO bulletin boards every day.

So let’s get this out of the way now: yes, there’s a Wilco influence to be found here. But there’s also equal parts Beatles, Stones, The Band, Ryan Adams, and Neil Young. Yet those expecting a barroom cover band will be disappointed...then thrilled with what ends up on record. It’s a gamble to go for that world-weary traveler vibe on your first full-length album. But the life-as-seen-from-a stage details like the “broken strings and colored lights” of “Unsatisfied” are typical of the band’s savvy grasp of hours spent behind the wheel and inside greasy spoon diners.

Perhaps we’re a bit biased. So let’s turn to that zenith of rock crit, the Illinois Institute of Technology’s TechNews, which described the “sense of shared experience and purpose”, that drives the members of Riviera. Spending four years evolving your sound will do that for ya. Listen to the results streaming here in Real Audio (check out the begging-to-be-a-single “Ashes On The Moon”) or download some mp3s here.

Then follow the rest of the story at Schuba’s tomorrow at 9 PM with Paper Airplane Pilots and labelmates Quasar Wut-Wut. Get yourself an advanced copy of the album that night, online, or find it in better record stores on April 5th.