Ahhh, the plight of Robby Roadsteamer. He’s so serious and honest about his craft that many often question just how, well, honest and serious he actually is. And that’s to be sort of expected when your major mark on music has been fronting a playful hard rock band that writes rock operas about Duck Hunt. And especially when your best known song, “I Put A Baby In You”, has been covered by one of the guys from Slipknot. And… yeah, those early years in the wig and fake moustache.

That ain’t this years model of Robby Roadsteamer, though. This is the guy slugging it out in Boston clubs, trying to get a foothold in a too-planned infrastructure with more history than your average city. Reinventing yourself isn’t easy, especially when the only open mike nights you can’t get people to pay attention at are grungy comedy dives. Which would be fine if Robby were only delivering artist parodies and the like, but even a cursory listen to one of the five acoustic releases he dropped in 2008 will reveal not only a brilliant social satirist, but also a guy that writes down every seemingly inconsequential thought that pops into his brain. That could mean rewriting Jackson Browne’s “The Load Out” into an anthem for every shitty club band on earth, getting fucked over while playing Altered Beast, or simply deciding on which provisions one should keep in their room to best avoid their roommates. It’s heady stuff, and don’t pretend that these things don’t belong in songs: more people have thought about these situations than whatever the hell the new Kanye songs are about. But Robby’s songs? People laugh because they are uncomfortable at brutal honesty, and that’s the long and short of it.

So when I tell you that I Solved Every Miniquest is a very, very serious Robby Roadsteamer album, don’t give me the stink eye and point to some YouTube clip of him trying to get noticed in a dirty club while playing “Someone Put A Condom On My Dreams”. I will laugh at you heartily and point to the very, very serious wailing of “When I Sell My Song To Batman III”, a tale of a better life through soundtrack money. I will also show you the barely contained desperation of the opening piano-driven “Route 9″ and watch you cry over your Nintendo Zapper and bottle of Zima.

But this album isn’t just different because of the subject matter - a story of longing and unrequited feelings, if you must know - it’s also the lean and almost anemic backing band that backs Robby up who occasionally borders on twee pop (seriously!) that frames the tracks in the light that they have been begging for in the last few years. He couldn’t have gotten away with the digs at Neutral Milk Hotel with the full-tilt rock of Postcards From The Den Of Failure, and he surely couldn’t have made the references to “Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll” work so well without his trusty acoustic guitar. He’s found the perfect balance of band/bedroom artist here.

And Robby has definitely found the right blend of surprising and comforting, as well. See, you’re gonna get your acoustic odes to Teris, but you’re also gonna get some gospel tinged rave ups in “Twin Doughnut Sign” and “Two Week Maine Vacations”, call-and-response pop in the form of “When We Hang Out”, and possibly Robby’s most poignant song to date in “To Princess Toadstool”.

I Solved Every Miniquest isn’t going to be as obvious to the everyman as Robby’s earlier work. It’s funny, yes, but never overtly comedic. It takes a bit of work to understand, but ultimately? The album is very rewarding, and hell, I’ll say it: I Solved Every Miniquest is Robby Roadsteamer’s best album, bar none.

It’s available through Newbury Comics and your local iTunes distibutor on February 17th, 2009.