Long time keyboard player for Buffalo Tom, Phil Aiken has just released his
first solo album “Don’t Look Down“. Recruiting a host of musicians
(including members of Blake Babies, American HI-Fi, Juliana Hatfield and Buffalo Tom) to play on various tracks, Aiken has produced a collection of songs that mix soft grunge and rough hewn ballads, resulting in a low key but attractive debut.
The album has a punchy opening provided by the tracks ‘Lose Yourself’ and ‘Rear View’ – soft, simple jabs of distorted guitar, and drum tracks a wind up monkey would be proud of combine with soaring melodies to make the kind of gently scuzzy rock that sits (comfortably) somewhere between Dinosaur Jr and Crash Test Dummies.
Songs like ‘Missouri Arcade’ inject an almost psychedelic twist to the music, and ‘Constellation’ with its guitar arpeggios, quiet vocal harmonies, and flute just wash over you and provide a nuanced come down that leads into the rest of this gritty-sweet album. ‘Libertine’, ‘Melancholia’, ‘Edison’, and ‘Paralysed’ continue this laid back feel – there’s an intimacy here, achieved partly, no doubt, by the fact that the majority of tracks were
recorded in Aiken’s home studio, and while it’s not quite Tom Waits, there
is still a happily loose feel to the material that prevents some of the ‘poppier’ stuff falling into MOR territory.
After the subdued middle section of the album, ‘Man Overboard’ kicks in with a fake snarl and fuzzy guitars, before the album closes with the title
track, a piano driven ballad – ‘I’m as tired as a fired gun’ sings Aiken. At least he can rest knowing he has produced this engaging album.