Riviera's
Broken Hearted Dreams is a hideaway of bungalow anthems and bedroom door confessionals inspired by the wisdom in a hollowed-out bible. Over six songs, the Chicago quartet maps the routes between
American Music Club,
the Rolling Stones, and the more intellectual wing of insurgent country's brokedown palace, discovering in the end that everything leads to the same blind alley. "Friends in California" dangles the dream of the golden state as a refuge from pain, and features a sunlit country-rock chorus as proof. But its characters are embittered. "You don't remember how we got here," Derek Phillips sings. "But I can tell you it was luck." The narrator of the gorgeous "Such Sweet Sorrow" is just as hopeful for the future, but seems more concerned about the voices in his head. It's a weary, bluesy number, and plays out like "Sister Morphine"'s schizophrenic cousin. Riviera has definitely stayed a few nights in
Wilco's Americana hotel. But their debut EP never lets its influences lead the dance, instead dizzying them with literate doses of absurdist humor and liberal doses of the hidden hooch in that hollow bible. ~ Johnny Loftus