HiRez Poll Riverside - ID.ENTITY [Blu-Ray Audio (Dolby Atmos)]

[edisonbaggins]

Yes, I did.

Sigh... was hoping you might have had a bit better experience available easily.

 

[Thonolan]

This is a somewhat difficult album for me to review. I love Riverside - they are my favourite young band ("young band" meaning having started in the 21st century), and this album sits probably 3rd in my personal ranking of their discography, only below Second Life Syndrome and Anno Domini High Definition. There's a lot of wonderful music here. But the two surround mixes are so inconsistent that I'm not sure how to rate it. They often alternate dull sections with moments of greatness.

Despite sounding a bit compressed, I like the stereo mix. It's well balanced, and each instrument can be heard clearly. When I first started playing the 5.1 mix, I remember I thought I was in for a treat. The first minute or so sounded so promising, with those 80's inspited synth sounds filling the room from every angle. But then, once the full band came in, I was basically hearing stereo. And that pretty much applies for the whole album. It's as if Robert Szydło forgot he was supposed to do a multichannel mix for most of the time, except some selected moments here and there when he suddenly awakened and got it pretty much right, only to forget about it again half a minute later. It's important to note that this is not the same as a very conservative, "big stereo" mix; no, it's just inconsistent, and goes from plain stereo moments to full, satisfying surround sections not always in a logical or predictable way.

The Atmos mix isn't too different (I have a 7.2.4 system). Some of the occasional elements placed in the rears for the 5.1 mix are here in the heights (mainly front heights) instead, such as the spoken voice and the bridge vocals in "Big Tech Brother". Other times, the rare rear sounds are kept there and some additional surprises come from the heights, so it's a bit more immersive overall, but far from night and day difference.

As some of you have noted, the mix tends to become a bit more interesting towards the end of the album, and in fact the two bonus tracks (which are really good instrumental tracks in their own right) make the best sounding surround experience of this album. I'm also aware that some of you also mentioned that increasing the level of some specific channels improves the overall feeling of the mix, but my goal is to review it as it originally is, without tweaks. I have a very well calibrated system, which matching speakers that output the same level at the main listening position, so I think they serve as a good reference to test a tweak-free mix.

Overall, I have mixed (no pun intended!) feelings about this one. Looking at the glass half full, I could say that, at worst, both the 5.1 and the Atmos mix just sound like the stereo, but at best both improve it by a wide margin, but only in selected moments. I definitely enjoy it more in surround than in stereo. Sounds good, the music is great, and I like the artbook edition, it's really a nice format to have on your hands, but it could have been so much better.

I'm voting 7. I have the feeling that some tend to see 7 as a very severe rating, but in my view it's a good rating that still makes this a recommended purchase - just not a priority, unless you really love the band, as it's my case.

 

[rugene]

Yes, I agree with Thonolan, this is an inconsistent mix. Some moments of activity in the rears and too much total inactivity. Maybe he was falling asleep for a moment and then woke up many times to realize what he was supposed to do. I gave this an 8 because of the good music, but it could have been better.