It was the group Chicago who sang those simple but universally true words: "Everybody needs a little time away". So if you'd been spewing out saturated and distorted electric guitar sounds for the Smashing Pumpkins over the past ten years, as James Iha had, and your band had just emerged from a karmically-bad period of drug abuse and related fatalities, clashes with the law and an extended period of touring the emotionally taxing music of 'Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness', you would also feel the need to kick back with some old buddies in the comparative calm of your home studio in, er, Chicago and get this soft and sweet set of acoustic songs out of your system and onto an album.

'Let It Come Down' is the result of James Iha's well-earned catharsis. Eleven of his own compositions that maintain a steady and mannered consistency and which refuse to shout or screech or degenerate into a Pumpkins-type maelstrom. There are the occasional increases in tempo but Iha's restrained, calm and gentle vocals keeps everything anchored and non-aggressive. This is his chill-room and nothing's going to disturb the good vibes therein.

As song titles like 'Be Strong Now', 'Beauty', 'See The Sun', Sound Of Love' and 'No One's Gonna Hurt You' suggest, this is a collection of positive, uplifting and healing lyrics, thoughts and emotions surrounded by a some typically late-'60s Californian twinkly, acoustic and laid-back instrumentation. Iha's voice and lyrics tend a little towards yearning twee-ism but after a few listens they merge with the general gentleness of this album, making it the perfect grunge antidote (for those who may need it).

There are two main groups of consumers who will buy this CD. Firstly there are the legions of Smashing Pumpkins completists who would buy a bootleg of Billy Corgan singing showtunes in the shower, were such an album available (and it probably is!). The other group are all those baby boomers who would welcome something new and contemporary to replace their early Neil Young, Jackson Browne and Joni Mitchell albums. Some light and spiritual folk-rock for those warm and sunny Sunday mornings. 'Let It Come Down' is that album. It should be sub-titled 'Happi-ness and the Eternal Optimism'.

Stephen "Sugar" Segerman

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