Stealing Fire

Stealing Fire as a whole, is a pretty unremarkable album to me. For someone who really loves how diverse and colorful Virtual Riot can be, and how interesting his sound design can be, this album feels filled a lot of played out heavy ideas, lacking in the melodic colorful melodies VR is usually known for, instead going for a more generic "live banger energy" vibe that feels long and drawn out on this album. I can kinda see what the intent was here, and to give it some credit, it's arguably a bit more well made than something like Simulation, but Simulation was just a much much more FUN album than this. This is pretty boring in a lot of ways, with very little excitement or fun ideas like what Simulation had to keep me hooked.

Don't get me wrong, Simulation is not a perfect album either, but this feels like a step down in every, with the only a few songs really catching my eye, particularly Reconnect being a song that feels like a bonus track from Simulation. I guess I just wish this was more like that, but instead we got a watered down live version of Virtual Riot that only feels similar in some of his off drops and sound design.

Favorite Songs: Reconnect, Give in to you, Ridiculous, Need / Get
Least Favorite Songs: Dino Killer, Star Destroyer, Scorched Earth, New Energy