A concept album is hard to pull off, and more audacious still for a twenty-six-year-old artist with only a few EPs to their name.

No worries for Lava La Rue, though, as the British-Jamaican’s debut full-length, STARFACE, does well on its promise to offer an interplanetary adventure through funk, soul, and psychedelic sounds. The STARFACE story goes as such: a genderfluid alien from space arrives on earth to study why humans are so self-destructive, eventually falling in love with one and wondering whether to stay on our doomed planet. “I wonder what it’d be like to be on your team,” they wonder while the album closes.

The record is packed with featured artists around the globe for a more cosmic, humanity-driven feel: tendai, Audrey Nuna, So!YoON!, yunè pinku, bbsway, among others, trade off verses with STARFACE and immerse themselves in their journey. For such a large roster, STARFACE as a listening experience is fittingly expansive, surprising, and interestingly adept — La Rue contorts their voice and sound to fit the style of drum n’ bass (“Second Hand Sadnes”), Tame Impala-adjacent neo-psychedelia (“Shell Of You”, “FLUORESCENT / Beyond Space”), pop rap (“Poison Cookie”), and funk (“Push N Shuv”, “Better”) all while making the record flow nicely, not hindered by the amount of ideas it possesses.

Even though the alien motif might have been done before, La Rue also takes their time to insert social commentary within the constructs of their imagined world, much like how Janelle Monáe effortlessly did the same on her albums surrounding her robot persona Cindi Mayweather. “They wanna oppress us ‘cause it’s ‘we’ they fear / You wanna be a rebel, baby, come right here,” they sing on the cosmic “Manifestation Manifesto,” and on the industrial rap anthem “Poison Cookie,” they urge to find comfort within isolation: “There’s a shadow / Watching all your steps and your thoughts / In the abyss of one mind it explores / The digital frontier astronaut.” Though, on some places, like “Humanity,” they resort to simple observations, such as asking, “So many humans / Where’s the humanity?”

But of course, STARFACE’s journey is a deeply human one. Enmeshed within us, it only takes so long to pick out one of their choosing, which they detail on the groovy “INTERPLANETARY HOPPIN’”: “You seem like a cosmic lady / So we should hang out.” On “FLUORESCENT / Beyond Space,” too, they reckon with finding this person whilst on their mission: “Finding heaven in the light that I left behind / If I keep staring at the sun it’s gonna make me blind.” Eventually, on the closer, they ask, “I crash-landed the day we first met / And saw the world’s fate changing / Do I stay here? Or save you?” amidst high notes and romance reminiscent of Kali Uchis. The fate of STARFACE and their lover are up for debate, but their path — involving shitty beers and biking around on nondescript beaches — all lead up to a poignant, clean result.

Hardly is a debut album so unflinching in its ideas and commitment to a variety of sound — La Rue positions themselves as a young Janelle Monáe or Rina Sawayama in their unfettering confidence. STARFACE is a kaleidoscopic and far-reaching debut from someone who already seems to have a vision for who they are and what they want to do, alien or human.

Order Starface by Lava La Rue HERE