It was nearly a year ago that Roxi Drive first caught our attention with a synth-soaked neon fantasyland EP titled Girl on the TV. Since then, the London musician and performer has been busy crafting her debut full-length album, Strangers Of The Night, which finally arrives today (October 18) through brilliant dashes and flashes of seductively-crafted retro-futuristic pop music.
There’s been a mighty wave of synth music coloring this decades’s final gasps in bright pinks and florescent glows, but what makes Roxi Drive’s sound stand apart is her flexible mix of synthwave, electronic-pop, and synth-pop. Here are the usual nods to both ’80s-era new wave inspiration and Drive-pop modernity, but Strangers Of The Night shows off a wealth of crystal-sharp songwriting and a skillful awareness of when to either thrust forward with impact or when to allow blank spaces to curate a mood. That’s perhaps most apparent on LP standout “Falling”, a vibrant blast of romantic synthwave that entices and enraptures without ever losing its balance. It’s a song eager to shout from the skyscrapers, but instead remains calm in its own confidence among the city shadows. It’s instantly among the finest electronic-pop tracks of 2018.
“A collaboration of pure synth fusion, let these retro sounds take you back in time to a fun filled ’80s summer,” reads the Strangers Of The Night’s description, which sums things up nicely as a whole. “Dancing at the Miami beach clubs, cocktails at sunset on Santa Monica Beach, horror movies and popcorn at the movie theater and long night drive’s, cruising under a star filled sky.”
Take a spin through Roxi Drive’s world below, and by the time the final synth loops of album closer “Stay with Me” fade into oblivion, you’ll realize that her world is a much better alternative to the colorless one in which we’re all forced to reside.
