THE BEN SOLLBERGER PROJECT is the creation of the musician and songwriter from Bern, Switzerland of the same name (makes sense, right). A veteran of many bands (AGE OF DISCLOURSE, DISTANT PAST) over his thirty plus years in music, Ben decided to begin his "musical freedom" by releasing his first solo project "I Hate to Say" in 2021, followed up in 2022 by his current endeavor, "Down Here on Earth".  The songs are written to focus on life's observations, emotion, personal introspection, and self-reflection (whew), all that while adding elements from hard rock, AOR, and pop, he sat down to write an album with good songs rather than caring about musical styles or band images, his mission was to write from his "heart and soul". A one man show, literally, he wrote all the songs as well as playing all the instruments (whew again). I will dig in and see where this musical potpourri experience takes me, come on along.

We are off, starting with "Warrior", nice mellow rock intro with soothing guitar work and ambient rhythm, but an uncomfortable chorus hurt the overall song structure. Next up is the title track "Down Here on Earth", slow paced, somber song with some nice sharp classic riffs but nothing to get me excited, if I weren't reviewing this album for Metal Temple I might have said bye-bye and moved on, but my publisher wouldn't like that, so I continue on with hopeful expectations. Yay, a good start with "I Think of You", nice rock beat with a solid infusion of keyboards to compliment a pretty balanced song. "Back into your Heart" has some bite, a catchy harder riff with more rocking vocal swagger mixed nicely with keyboards and strong guitar solo. Maybe we're turning the corner here, "Fire" has a meaty riff and feel but the vocals sounded mis-cast, out of place, this one just needed some true hardcore rock singing to bring it home, swing and a miss.

Let us start with the positive, as a lyricist, Ben Sollberger writes some compelling and passionate songs, he definitely puts his heart on paper, and as a songwriter wanna-be like myself, I applaud that, and I feel he accomplished what he intended this album to be. But it just did not intoxicate me, only a few songs jumped out and tugged at my metal heart strings. Yes, there were some catchy riffs and some nice guitar solos, but I felt vocally, it was very pedestrian, the overall album felt like a strange cross between ALICE IN CHAINS, R.E.M, and COLLECTIVE SOUL.