Airstream
Kindom of Isolation

A stream of air coming from Mr. Stiff, also known as Staffan Karlsson who is known as the singer of the band Sky of Rage who released one album in 2012. Now he thinks he is ready for his own project and that project is named Airstream and the debut album is called Kingdom of Isolation – it has a cover that looks a tad AOR-ish or something along those lines, not that interesting if I am honest. Some prominent musicians are enlisted though and that might be something interesting, nine musical treasures full of surprising ideas and performed by a band on highest level according to the label.

Musically it is a bit of a concoction of styles and there isn’t really any red line going through the album, it is quite incoherent and it doesn’t really feel like any of the nine tracks belong together. It is also an album with songs that sounds quite a lot like something we have all heard before – I actually thought it was an album of covers but as there were no mention of that in the press release I am fairly sure that it isn’t covers even though it sounds like it. Vocalist is decent though and the production is alright so there are some redeeming features, the album is short as well but still manages to span modern hardrock, metal, some progressive touches and such things – one has to wonder who the intended audience is though as this isn’t particularly clear here.

There are a few very good songs and some of them are quite dull and they don’t fit together very well, in a sense I guess that the title is quite telling. All the tracks are isolated from one another with no real connection and they still share one album, like a kingdom of isolated tracks. Not really something that I like, I think that albums should have something connecting the tracks and not just a few random tracks that forms an album of random tracks that could just as well have been from nine different bands - nah, that needs addressing in order to get it right. I have to say that this album does not quite manage to interest me as a music fan.

There are some good songs as I stated before, the opening track is okay, the title track is fairly good and so is the ending track House of Pain. These are worth listening to but Oh Mother Oh Father is a quite embarrassing thing to endure and there are some other snoozers as well, it isn’t a very good album in the end. The main gripe is the incoherency but that isn’t the only thing that is wrong with this album – it feels like he didn’t quite finish it, there is something missing. Better luck next time Mr Staffan, this will not do.

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