Phil Selway: Familial (Shock)

 |   |  1 min read

Phil Selway: Don't Look Down
Phil Selway: Familial (Shock)

Despite the careers of Phil Collins and Dave Grohl – and Ringo's country music record after the Beatles' break-up – no one expects much of solo albums by drummers: Peter Criss' was the worst seller of the Kiss solo releases in 78. Pussycat whiskers didn't help.

But Radiohead's Selway – one of Neil Finn's 7 Worlds Collide project – confounds expectation, as his band always have. First there's no tub-thumping, just moody and interesting (and deftly orchestrated) singer-songwriter music with acoustic bassist Sebastian Steinberg, violinist Lisa Germano, Wilco's Jeff Tweedy and Glenn Kotche (all Colliders) as well as Don McGlashan and others sympathetic to Selway's Anglofolk-framed songs which reach from spare Nick Drake to a more lightly touched and slightly dissonant worldview.

The gorgeous hurt of Broken Promises goes back to a childhood home when pains have faded and he touches a universal place for many parents and their children as he seems to address sisters or brothers: “Let's celebrate the lives that you made, go to a place where you'll find peace for the very first time”.

This, the engrossing drone of Don't Look Down with its off-kilter piano (“It's like we're on high trapeze . . . what we see in the cold light can scare us all”), and the tone of thoughtful introspection (despite it all, life's probably okay, maybe) make for an album that really is quite something.

You won't miss the drum solo.

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Music at Elsewhere articles index

Timothy Blackman: I've Never Lived (Home Alone)

Timothy Blackman: I've Never Lived (Home Alone)

Singer-songtwriter Blackman appeared at Elsewhere previously with his very interesting EP Modern Sprawl, and this is his short (half an hour) nine-song debut album recorded in  Berlin in... > Read more

The Felice Brothers; Tonight at the Arizona (Shock) BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2007

The Felice Brothers; Tonight at the Arizona (Shock) BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2007

Although perhaps too referencing of Dylan and the Band holed up in the basement of the Big Pink, that doesn't mean this shakily delivered collection of Americana from these three brothers and a... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

THE JB HI-FI GUIDE TO ESSENTIAL VINYL, VOLUME 2 (2021): Another 101, and more, records in any serious collection

THE JB HI-FI GUIDE TO ESSENTIAL VINYL, VOLUME 2 (2021): Another 101, and more, records in any serious collection

This time last year -- which seems a very long time ago now -- JB Hi-Fi published The JB Hi-Fi Guide to Essential VInyl Volume 1 which they commissioned me to write. There were 101 main entries... > Read more

Buena Vista Social Club: Lost and Found (World Circuit)

Buena Vista Social Club: Lost and Found (World Circuit)

If, almost 20 years ago, someone told you one the biggest music phenomena of the era would be a bunch of mostly old people from Cuba singing in Spanish, it's doubtful you'd have believed them.... > Read more