Stealing Fire - Virtual Riot

Just like Prometheus stole the fire of the gods to create humans, Virtual Riot must have stolen some particularly divine fire to create his first Monstercat project.

"Stealing Fire" is executed in true Virtual Riot fashion—stomping basses, crushing dubstep, and a particular affinity for well-placed sampling. His newest project sees him hold back none of his cards, employing an impressive array of genres and styles, made even more impressive by the fact that he does this largely without any collaborators. Yes, there's your fair share of brostep—there has to be in a Virtual Riot project, otherwise it wouldn't be a Virtual Riot project, and he sure does deliver some stinging blows with tracks like "Dino Killer" and "Believe What You Want"—but there's also plenty of variety as well, with not only neighbouring genres like drum n bass or bass house, but also alternative genres like techno or melodic house. And while aggression perpetuates the album in its entirety, there's also some nice atmospheres and downtempo tracks to keep things interesting—at least, more interesting than just heavy track after heavy track for nearly an hour of runtime. What puts the cherry on top, though, is the quality at which it's produced. For every track, no matter the genre, the production is remarkably clean, and that means you never have to worry about the technical aspect, only whether you enjoy the style—and there are enough styles that you'll surely enjoy one or two of them. Each track is very self-contained, however, meaning that they don't contribute to the overall structure of the album whatsoever, leaving "Stealing Fire" with a relatively high track quality, but with a relatively low cohesiveness. Still, that does mean that Virtual Riot is able to bring each track to life without having to worry about the general cohesion of the album, and the polish he places on each track is largely what makes "Stealing Fire" his strongest record to date.

But the lack of cohesiveness does raise questions. Unlike his previous LP "Simulation", which struggled with the polish of tracks but excelled at narrative, "Stealing Fire" is fantastic in its individual track quality but struggles with album structure. The interludes are pitiful attempts at bringing some structure to the record, and they are utterly ignored by the surrounding tracks (other than a simple transition). And so whilst "Stealing Fire" certainly packs one hell of a punch, I don't think it's the full expression of potential Virtual Riot has in him; "Stealing Fire" will not be his defining record.