Short Reviews [Aaron Brooks - 2018 - "Homunculus"]

Aaron Brooks really made his name as songwriter of the acclaimed American psychedelic rock band Simeon Soul Charger, but he actually started as a singer-songwriter and here he returns to those roots following the demise of the band. He has been off the scene for two years, but has returned with an album that is both beautiful and, in many ways, simplistic. It is the style of singer-songwriter that one heard in the late Sixties when it didn’t matter what was being thrown into the mix, and in an ideal world “Everybody Knows” would be being hailed as a long-lost psychedelic rock classic and sat firmly at the top of the charts. He has a great voice, and interestingly he mixes the psychedelic feel with nuances of Muse here and there, but in a far less bombastic fashion. Sometimes it is just him and piano, others a rock group, all with plenty of hooks and pop stylings. When I first saw the album I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t an album as engaging and so damn interesting from the very first listen. I soon found myself singing some of the songs around the house, much to everyone’s dismay, as once they get into the brain they stay there. According to Wikipedia, a Homunculus is a representation of a small human being, and was popularized in sixteenth-century alchemy and nineteenth-century fiction: it has historically referred to the creation of a miniature, fully formed human. Is this how Aaron sees himself? If the music is anything to go by then the rest of us will be viewing him as a giant, as this is one of the finest psychedelic art rock progressive singer-songwriter albums I have ever had the pleasure to hear, what a delight from start to end.