There’s something uneasy about listening to a stranger tell you their secrets. Therapy with someone you’ve never met? Paging through a diary that isn’t yours? It all sounds and feels wrong. Yet, when listening to SOULSTAR, the debut from Australian-based musician BOY SODA, it feels like the right thing to do because every verse, chorus, and song feels relatable in a very poignant way. Over the course of forty-four minutes and 13 tracks, he invites you into a late-night conversation where heartbreak and small victories share the same breath. His storytelling is concise and clever while still being wounded and self-aware. And just when the weight of heartbreak and family trauma begins to feel too much, his voice pulls it all together as he glides over production that refuses to sit still, mixing jazz, neo-soul, R&B, and hip-hop until genre feels irrelevant. It’s confessional music that grooves, therapy that moves.
BOY SODA begins his introduction with “My Body,” a track that quickly expands from a few, subtle keys into a full-blown production complete with drums, wind instruments, and a series of self-reflective phrases that are all too relatable. Line by line, he sorts through his emotions in the face of a draining fling that has left him drinking more and experiencing happiness less. However, he promises, “I swear…I’m feeling amazing. [It was just] temporary infatuation.” His attempts to avoid properly grieving his latest failed attempt at love and armor himself with male bravado and false toughness prove to be futile as “My Body” bleeds into “Lil’ Obsession” and “Hit The Road!” Over two distinct soundscapes dripping with funk, soul, and passion, BOY SODA begins to draw the boundaries that will free him of this thing or person he can’t seem to let go of because of his undying lust. However, as he describes on “Never The Same,” telling his “Lil’ Obsession” to “Hit The Road!” is often easier said than done. Not even the pop-leaning, guitar-laden production reminiscent of 2000s Justin Timberlake can mask the pain in his voice when he sings:
You caught that fire, and I felt your rain
The weatherman said there’s a storm on the way
Cruel to admit that it ended this way, yeah, oh
When the pain of letting go fades, even briefly, BOY SODA turns his gaze inward. “A Father’s Heart” is a confrontation disguised as a confession. He removes the bravado and emerging celebrity that often come with being an emerging artist in his 20s and centers himself as a young man taking inventory of the bruises he accumulated throughout his childhood. Over a beat that’s somber, yet busy, he writes like someone both scared of and addicted to the truth as he grapples with his relationship with his father and his brother. Longing for peace and devoid of self-pity, he grieves out loud: “Scars don’t have to be birthmarks/The road ends where the heart starts/Said blood is not deeper than trust.”
The storm of emotion settles into the calming “4K,” a collaboration with Dean Brady and Siala. However, the “calming” is only found in the catchy, D’Angelo-like production. Dean Brady, Siala, and BOY SODA sing and rap with a striking clarity as they, in no uncertain terms, draw lines in the sand between them and those who love them but are prone to causing more headaches and heartaches. And regardless of what changes they make internally or externally, those family, friends, exes, etc., still carry the same shadows. BOY SODA knows all too well that this distance can be both protection and punishment. “If the halos are real,” he warns, “then yours is a noose.” That’s not cruelty; it’s peace — the kind that comes when you finally stop confusing love with obligation.
When BOY SODA solely focuses on finding love and nourishing it, every song sounds like waking up next to that special someone in a luxury home overlooking the beach on a sunny day. “4K” is the entry point for “Blink Twice,” a well put-together track, swimming in sincere, passionate horns and modest drums. BOY SODA diving deep into a romance that ignores the ills of the world and focuses on the moment, possessing an energy akin to that of J. Cole’s verse on Miguel’s “Come Through and Chill.” “Good Morning,” produced by Chunkyluv, skips past the conversation about the world and him and solely focuses on the beauty of being with his person. Lush in its production and delicate in its writing, it serves as the perfect palette cleanser for an album that is heavy in its lyrical content through the first six tracks.
But the journey towards glee and romance is cut short by more unhealthy, less productive relationships characterized by lust rather than love. To his credit, BOY SODA and company make those situationships sound cinematic and enticing. The late-night trilogy of “PM,” “Slippery,” and “Find A Way” plays like temptation, surrender, and regret in sequence. Pounding with a pulsating bass and heavy horns, “PM” feels as if BOY SODA is speeding down the highway at 3 AM to link up with someone he knows that he shouldn’t, while “Slippery” expands upon that feeling with a jazzy, jam-session-like soundscape. “Find A Way” is the crescendo. A hazy, yet witty four-minute narrative about creating emotional distance once and for all. Singing, “You said you wanna see me, baby. You’d have better luck going blind,” he becomes blunt and definitive in a new way as he reasserts the boundaries set on “4K”
SOULSTAR closes with a pair of tracks that are more delicate and reflective. “Selfish” is a tribute to a late loved one cloaked in a starry, groovy production. Pulling away from conversations about lust and hookups, he opens, “I got a missed call. I don’t wanna pick up. [I’ve] got some bad news. Now, it’s up and it’s stuck. [I] wanna give you every bit of my love. Don’t you go soon. There’s no reason to rush.” With tears in his voice, he juxtaposes the pain he described on “A Father’s Heart” with the prettiness of “Slippery,” which features lines like “Love me as a youngin,’ me and all my cousins” and “I’m just not ready for you to go yet.” After a dozen tracks and highs and lows, SOULSTAR settles into its finale with a soothing outro. “Platonic & Sacred,” an acoustic exhale where he counts what remains: friendship, love, forgiveness, is a fitting end.
SOULSTAR isn’t flawless as no body of work or piece of writing is. “Slippery” repeats ground already covered, and some family threads feel slightly vague and hidden by metaphor. But the project never drags. It’s intimate without turning insular, tender without turning twee. Across these 44 minutes, BOY SODA sounds like someone unburdening himself track by track, willing to show the mess before the healing. It’s an act of vulnerability disguised as swagger, a reminder that self-acceptance can sound as beautiful as heartbreak.
