Santiagoโs own RIVERLABS comes roaring back from digital exile with Fractured Reality: Human Code, a 12-track cinematic tech-noir odyssey. Released after a frustrating label fallout and a pulled album, this comeback record doesnโt just rebuildโit reimagines.
Across its two-act structure, โThe Fractureโ and โThe Pulse,โ RIVERLABS turns the pain of disconnection into a dark, shimmering symphony of survival. The sound is a bruised mix of electronic, darkwave, and industrial textures, somewhere between Nine Inch Nailsโ raw edges and Jon Hopkinsโ reflective chaos. Itโs music for late-night wanderers, headphone introverts, and anyone whoโs ever rebuilt themselves from the wreckage.
The opener, โFractured Truth,โ sets the tone with grinding guitars and pounding drums that sound like machinery waking up from a nightmare. The vocals come despondent as they sing, while another breathier and colder voice gives you menacing spoken word in the synthetic storm. In that cold voice comes the line muttering, โThe mirror shows my face, but it doesnโt look the same,โ like a gut punch. โNo Signalโ and โSilent Citiesโ pull you deeper into the void, painting an uninhabited, glitching landscape where emotion feels like an antique. Then โEchoes of Resilienceโ cracks through the darkness with whispered defiance, โYou erased us from the script, but the silence became our sound.โ It builds into a six-minute slow-burn anthem, equal parts rage and redemption.
Side B, โThe Pulse,โ trades collapse for confrontation. โStrings of the Willโ and โInvisible Giantsโ throb with paranoia, while โDigital Ashesโ smolders in distortion, everything burns, but out of it, something human stirs. By the finale, โThe Last Connection,โ the reverbed vocals reach out through glitch and grit, aching for something real.
Fractured Reality: Human Code is a reckoning. RIVERLABS programs pain as it is being process, turning fracture into fire and silence into sound.
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Review by: Naomi Joan