Album Review | American Aquarium's Lamentations

It feels like yesterday American Aquarium released Things Change, a record begging the listener to live in its characters. A man consoling his partner who devastatingly recognizes the “world is on fire.” Someone coming to the hard realization they are better off confronting their addictions. Characters wrestling with the unconscionable and somehow making sense of it. 

Things Change was strong enough that new realizations continue to bubble to the surface. My initial reaction to the news that American Aquarium was headed into the studio with Shooter Fucking Jennings was, “I get you have a lot to say BJ, but we ain’t done processing the last one.”

Things Change was released in 2018. Since then, the pace of the real world has accelerated to warp speed while the power of American Aquarium’s Things Change has kept pace. When BJ Barham removed the governor from his songwriting motor several years ago, the result was an ascendancy to the upper echelon of his generation of tunesmiths. 

Lamentations, American Aquarium’s latest release straddles the raucous honky tonk rock of early American Aquarium and the more socially conscious nature of Barham’s last collection of songs. The themes are familiar - hard work, substance abuse and sobriety, the South, sad stories. With Lamentations, Barham has taken another huge step forward in songcraft. 

As we have come to expect, the album opens with a kick-in-the-teeth tune that comes to a soaring, anthemic coda. These things usually need time to marinate before we declare superlatives. Nonetheless, the title track is Barham’s finest songwriting. “Me + Mine (Lamentations)” sets the tone for an album full of scorching hot songs that feel like they were recorded at an American Aquarium show somewhere in Texas, the band’s home away from home. 

If you have seen them there, you know what I mean. American Aquarium always brings it regardless of venue. BJ and the boys (this lineup and those past) are professionals who take their craft seriously. But, the band is fueled by the fervor of its fans and folks in Texas take it up a notch.

More than any other studio release, Lamentations captures the spirit of American Aquarium’s greatest live shows- a testament to the touch of producer Shooter Jennings. Shooter seems to be the bridge between early, raw American Aquarium and the renaissance that began with Burn. Flicker. Die.

Most importantly, Barham has taken another stride in his examination of the South. We are living in a time where a generation of southern writers are taking on the South with a warm demanding hand. Folks like the Bitter Southerner, Jason Isbell, Drive-by Truckers, Lee Bains III- the list is long and growing. A group of people who are not content to make excuses for the way things are and the way things were. 

“I believe in a better south,” Barham sings on the album’s eighth track. It is a tune showcasing his acute ability to use critical observation as a source of hope. Hope for a better South, a better nation, a more honest examination of the ills that plague us collectively and individually. Lamentations is more than a new American Aquarium record. It’s a manifesto of the power of our best instincts.

Album Review | Kingdom in My Mind by The Wood Brothers

“The idea for this group has always been to marry our backgrounds, to imagine what might happen if Robert Johnson and Charles Mingus had started a band,” says Chris Wood of The Wood Brothers. Chris, his brother Oliver, and Jano Rix have melded genres while remaining anchored in American roots for nearly fifteen years. On their upcoming release Kingdom in My Mind, the ship takes flight tethered by the world’s longest rode.

Kingdom in My Mind does not ostensibly flow from previous Wood Brothers albums, yet from the first listen it feels like a logical next step. 2018’s One Drop of Truth was a departure from their normal recording process. It came together over a year period with multiple engineers at the helm. The result was an amalgamation of tunes that showcased the band as a unit. Each of their influences came through as an individual voice while blending into a gorgeous statement of an album. 

One Drop of Truth was nominated for a Grammy. Following that kind of reception would be daunting for most bands. The Wood Brothers are seemingly untroubled by such expectations. The band did not set out to make Kingdom in My Mind per se. The album began as an exploration of their new studio space in Nashville. 

They were jamming and getting oriented with the rooms of the studio. A group of musicians who know each other intimately, loosening their ties completely and exploring together. What happened was the inexplicable magic of music. Without meaning to, they had the bones of an album's worth of songs, which were later carved into their best work to date. 

Kingdom in My Mind kicks off with the funky, jazzy “Alabaster”- a song that captures the essence of The Wood Brothers and sets the tone for this record. It is a hopeful tune serving to open the listener’s imagination to the introspective places we so often live. 

“Little Bit Sweet” follows and lays the foundation for its sister song “Little Bit Broken” which comes later in the record. The tune starts almost like a jangly country blues number featuring Oliver Wood’s voice and guitar. Then Chris Wood’s bass and Jano’s special brand of percussion (complete with what sounds like a gong) come in to flip expectations on their heads. The song is a sonic divergence from the first track yet its place in the sequence of Kingdom of My Mind fits like a tailored suit. 

Midway through the record, the Brothers plant a flag cementing its theme. 

“Everyone has these little kingdoms in their minds,” says Chris Wood, “and the songs on this album all explore the ways we find peace in them. They look at how we deal with our dreams and our regrets and our fears and our loves. They look at the stories we tell ourselves and the ways we balance the darkness and the light.”

“When I’m lovin’ you I don’t think about my death” goes the chorus of the album’s main artery. The universality of our existential dread runs throughout this album. For some of us it’s a fear of not knowing what lies on the other side of our earthly demise. For others it’s the fear of leaving people behind. Death looms omnipresently and we all reckon differently with that reality. Only when we are truly present in the moment, when focused on a pure expression of love, can we escape the uneasiness that accompanies life and death.

Kingdom in My Mind explores tough questions with equanimity- uniting a multitude of sounds to create the most powerful expression in the storied catalog of The Wood Brothers. 

Kingdom in My Mind will be available everywhere you consume music on January 24, 2020.

The Wood Brothers- “Alabaster”