Steve Stachini – Unconventional
Steve Stachini arrives at his debut album not through the usual channels of music industry ambition, but through an act of personal necessity. A conceptual musician in the tradition of Malcolm McLaren, Stachini spent five years constructing “Unconventional” as the sonic companion to his 2020 autobiography, drawing every lyric from poetry he wrote during his youth as a coping mechanism for childhood abuse. The album is performed and recorded under the banner of NAR, which stands for Naked And Raw, a name that leaves no ambiguity about artistic intent. This is a record designed to confront, but ultimately, a record designed to liberate.
What immediately distinguishes “Unconventional” from the average independent concept album is its bilingual architecture. Stachini weaves English and French together across the tracklist in a manner that feels considered rather than arbitrary. The choice carries real artistic logic: French brings a particular emotional register, at once intimate and theatrical, that English alone cannot always achieve. In the context of an album exploring trauma, displacement, and the fractured inner life of a child growing into a young adult, the language shifts function as tonal signals, marking transitions in the psychological journey.
Musically, “Unconventional” is an extraordinarily broad adventure. The album is rooted primarily in symphonic metal, and it operates within that territory with genuine conviction. The orchestral arrangements lend weight to the more intense passages, amplifying the emotional stakes without tipping into melodrama. Tracks like “Coma 18” and “Cruel Love” demonstrate the band’s ability to build tension through layered instrumentation. Alongside this heavier framework, the album incorporates Adult Oriented Rock, pure pop, and even soul, jazz, and hip-hop in “Something In The Air”, a bold detour that, within the conceptual framework, reads as a moment of psychological dislocation. But Stachini does not stop there. “Key Two 3” reveals that he is willing to venture into ska, handling its buoyancy with a confidence that sits surprisingly well within the larger whole. At the same time, “TIME EP” pushes further still into reggae territory. These are choices a less assured artist would not dare make. Stachini deploys them as deliberate brushstrokes within a larger painting. Pure pop surfaces regularly throughout, accessible and direct, giving the album a democratic quality that never betrays its heavy subject matter but makes it more bearable.
Watching the accompanying video clips adds a dimension that listening alone cannot fully provide. Stachini produced a visual counterpart for each track, and together they tell his story with a clarity and immediacy that deepens the musical experience considerably. Those who engage with the full album across both sound and image will feel the pain, but will also witness the growth from a child who survives, through a young man who channels his emotions into poetry, to an adult who finds the courage to tell his story and distil from it something resembling artistic freedom. The fear and constriction of a childhood defined by abuse give way, track by track and clip by clip, to something that feels like hard-won liberation. It does not feel performed or resolved too neatly. It feels earned.
At nineteen tracks, “Unconventional” is a demanding listen, and there are moments where the scale of ambition slightly outpaces execution. Some production choices do not fully match the grandeur of the orchestral conception, and these are the natural tensions of an independent project built painstakingly over five years outside the major studio system.
What remains undeniable is the coherence and seriousness of purpose behind “Unconventional”. Stachini has constructed a genuine concept album in the fullest sense of the word. For listeners willing to give it the attention it demands, and particularly for those who engage with the visual dimension alongside the music, this album repays that investment with something rare: the portrait of a life reclaimed. As the album itself concludes, in a line that addresses the listener without flinching: ‘This album will blow your fucking mind.’ It is not an empty promise. (8/10) (Naked And Raw)
