Stev's given career is as a video game composer, but his love of electronics and the sensory tease of merging graphics with sound effects and music gave rise to a desire for breaking into a Pop landscape that has grown "artificial" in more ways than one. Piecing together catchy songs wasn't all he was interested in accomplishing. He came up with the Mind.In.A.Box concept, a metaphor for everything that prevents our minds from truly being free. Crossroads is his third effort, following 2004's debut exploration into everything that causes us to retreat inward and live out our lives with a feeling of perpetual solitude. Lost Alone was a highly conceptualized and impressive offering that merged emotional ideas with traditional techno, club/dance attitude, and lofty trance overtones. Its sequel, 2005's Dreamweb, furthered the thoughtfully articulated ideas while adding more contemporary EBM flourishes into the mix.

The music of Mind.In.A.Box isn't the most original collection of sounds you're going to hear. In fact, it harkens back to a lot of the techno and Trance released throughout the Nineties. Stev has an impressive ear for melody however, and while you will certainly experience recognition of music from years past, there's never a moment when it seems the themes or passages were lifted entirely from another artist. In essence, Stev is creating familiar songs that still sound original and definitely carry a stamp of emotional resonance that is unique to this particular individual's growing body of work.

Let it not be said that M.I.A.B doesn't give you your money's worth. This brand new collection of tracks clocks in at just under seventy minutes, and includes a 24 page booklet containing a short story, lyrics, and a code to unlock bonus content on the M.I.A.B website. That's quite a bit to digest. But is the music alone worth your time? Most certainly, the answer is yes. These thirteen songs engage the listener like a long and impressively varied journey that enriches as well as entertains. One is given to the feeling that this isn't just a diverse patchwork of rhythms and pleasing sounds but an inviting world begging for exploration.

Each song tends to start out traditionally enough, but just when you think it's growing too bland or ultimately repetitive Stev keenly throws something in that stimulates further interest, whether it be a curious synth line, echoing sound effect or slight shift in rhythm. Admittedly, the vocals come across as tremendously over-processed, changing from track to track through the use of pitch transposition, vocoders and the like. This can be somewhat grating but does succeed in keeping the record from wallowing in any degree of sameness. When you're dealing with something of this length and scope, it's imperative to keep the listener engaged. While not without its minor flaws and miscalculated diversions, Crossroads impresses in how well it engrosses and maintains its hold over you for such a broad period of time.

From the crashing waves and bolts of storming electricity on display in "Amnesia" to the arresting club propulsion of the aggressive "Identity," as well the eerily moody atmosphere of "Fear" and the orchestral magnitude of "Run For Your Life," the sounds, styles and textures are almost always lush and captivating, accented heavily by the depth and subtle urgency in the singular voice behind the music. Spoken word passages bind many of these pieces together making it more than a collection of themes and stories but also a cohesive work of artistic achievement that searches the human soul while reaching for a sonic stratosphere. Whether you're familiar with this artist or not I must recommend you check out Crossroads, then seek its predecessors. They are bold efforts that stand out in an age of bland, superficial forays into contemporary music.