[4][5][6] Despite finding favour with music critics, with Melody Maker anticipating "a fairytale future of Oasis-like proportions", the band were famously dropped by their label East West, a Warner Music Group imprint, a month before the release of their heavily promoted eponymous debut album, denting the group's chances of major commercial success.
Neil McCormick noted that Rialto were "among the most critically acclaimed and highly touted new groups to emerge" of the late 1990s, making "carefully crafted, Beatlesque pop, with an epic, cinematic sound and slightly sinister lyrics".
The group gained a following in East and Southeast Asia, particularly in South Korea where their debut reached the number one spot in the album charts.
[9] Rialto formed from the remains of the band Kinky Machine, who featured frontman Louis Eliot, guitarist Jonny Bull and drummer Anthony Christmas.
Still signed to East West Records, Eliot, Bull and Christmas continued working on new material through 1996 and added bassist Julian Taylor, second drummer Pete Cuthbert and keyboardist Toby Hounsham to the linep.
Although plagued with bad luck in Britain, the band ultimately found an audience in East and Southeast Asia, notably South Korea, where they displaced Celine Dion's "My Love Will Go On" from the number one spot with double Platinum album sales for Rialto.