Fans of Project Grand Slam need no introduction to the one-man music factory that is Robert Miller. Serving as the core creative lead of the band for the past decade-plus, Miller is not one for resting. According to Miller’s website, the group has ten albums that have seen release in the last six years upon reorganizing the lineup, and they’ve reached massive highs with a #1 spot on Billboard as well as “over 4 million video views, a million Spotify streams, and over 50,000 Facebook fans.” It’s easy to see that the man behind the band doesn’t fully get the concept of rest and relaxation with how much time and energy seems invested in Project Grand Slam. Well, just wait until I tell you about the solo career he’s been building on TOP of this.

Embarking as a one-man act under his name, Robert Miller caught the creative bug amid the 2020 pandemic when faced with the difficulty of harnessing his band in the middle of a lockdown. Choosing to enlist bandmates remotely, these initial recording sessions resulted in Miller’s solo debut Summer of Love, which is now out for purchase at all the usual spots. You’d think any normal person would stop at one album in the year of social distancing, but it’s important to remember that this is Robert Miller – the man has nearly a dozen albums out since 2015, there’s no way he’s gonna twiddle his thumbs and not make greater use of the overwhelming amounts of free time he has had foisted upon his lap.

PROJECT GRAND SLAM: https://www.facebook.com/projectgrandslam/

Enter semi-eponymously-titled album Miller Rocks, Robert Miller’s second wave of his grand foray into solo recording. In contrast with Summer of Love, this record’s process seems to branch beyond Project Grand Slam and deeper still into Miller’s artistic drive by focusing deeper on his musical credo over that of a collaboration between bandmates. One can instantly draw comparisons between Miller Rocks and Paul McCartney’s self-titled trilogy of albums all made entirely by the Beatle himself with the most recent being made similarly while in lockdown, and while Miller does enlist a few helpers on his sophomore release, the core themes are quite evidently all his.

Miller Rocks contains a compact ten tracks that touch on all of the sounds and genres fans of Miller’s prior discography have come to know and love; the classic rock is there in throwback tunes “My Baby” and “1000 Days,” and rock is the main force that propels the album along as a whole. Listeners will notice a beautiful musical interlude in “African Nights (For Chick),” a fantastic halfway point in the album’s tracklisting that will demand repeat listens. The divide in half for the album is a far-out addition to the project, as it almost splits the album into two separate halves tonally beginning with the inclusion of the previously mentioned musical break. Everything on Miller Rocks points to Robert Miller being an established force and brilliant staying power within the music industry. The results speak for themselves within the acclaim given to Project Grand Slam, so it’s no wonder Robert Miller is taking a much-deserved victory lap.

Zachary Rush