William Steffey’s “Roadstar” is a haunting journey through a harsh, twisted musical landscape. The album’s grim, dark feel is perfect for when you’re having one of those “I hate the world” kind of days.
The album’s strength lies in its overall feel.
It’s consistently dark and haunting with songs that fit well together without blending into an unidentifiable mass as some albums tend to do.
While the album is dark and shares some of the flavor of harder-edged industrial metal, it is nowhere near that hard, instead feeling closer to rock in temp and such. It’s similarity to metal, like Nine Inch Nails, is more of a feel thing than anything, it evokes the same sort of mood (at least in me). The fact that a number of the songs feature techno beats adds to that overall feel.
The lyrics are at the same time a strength and a weakness. There is definitely substance there, but occasionally they wax a bit too poetic, making the message a bit hard to understand.
The limitations of those lyrics is shown by “World’s Tallest Building,” an instrumental number that is probably the album’s best track. Still, the lyrics of the other songs do fit in well with the albums overall moodiness.
-Chris Randazzo
