I've been sitting on this one for a while, which is a shame because it's really something special. Maybe I felt like it was more special because I was keeping it to myself? Like it was some scare commodity that acquired an inflated value by my bogarting it. Well, I'm done being stingy with the goods, selfishness never suited me anyway. Saga is the album that accompanied a multi-media extravaganza which premiered in the fall of 2021. It's a punk rock opera that roughly traces the beats of the Wizard of Oz, only with all of the wonder and whimsy of L. Frank Baum's fairyland peeled off and replaced with the grit and depravity of LA. The album follows the journey of the Stuntdriver as she evades the overbearing Orwellian oversight of the episode's villain, the Influencer, while seeking authenticity along the crimson bricks of the Red Road. For a project that combines the camp and edge of New Wave Theater with the unpredictable theatrics of a traveling carnival caravan, Saga has a surprisingly solid, and classic, structure: There is the "call to adventure" introduced with the ominously marshal, slam-poet procession of "Red Road;" then the "crossing the threshold" portion of the escapade transpires on "Battle Song" which sounds like it's accompanying the escape from a darkwave-fortified maximum security prison located on an island in the middle of a shark-infested ocean; next we find Stuntdriver surviving her primary, strengthen garnering "ordeal" on the anthemic and lean-funk fast-ball "Fugitive;" after which we witness our hero's triumphant return (ie "the road back") on the spiritually ascendant and corporally industrial rhythm-rumble of "Trapped in a Body;" all leading to the final conquest of evil on the cathartic, cleansing cycle and scrub of "Bad Bath," where the villain is defeated by, you guessed it, a shower they didn't ask for, but definitely had coming. It's an absolutely wild ride, one brimming with imagination, personality, and some very aggressive self-care. Like most hero's journey's, you may find yourself irrevocably changed by the end. Don't blame me if this album turns out to be the first chapter in some new, reckless phase of your life- thank Stundriver for whipping some vitality back into your flatout conformist existence!
