American Aquarium: The Fear of Standing Still | ★★★★ | Losing Side/Thirty Tiger; July 26
The Fear of Standing Still, the 10th album from unstoppable country-rock road warriors American Aquarium, might be the Raleigh band’s best. Without question, it’s the best place to start to get acquainted with them.
Following consecutive high-water marks in 2020’s searingly socially conscious Lamentations and 2022’s thoughtfully stripped-back Chicamacomico, this 10th album consolidates the strengths of those efforts. Captured with warm clarity by Lamentations producer Shooter Jennings, it also documents the group’s current lineup—rebooted in 2019 featuring guitarist Shane Boeker, pedal steel player Neil Jones, keyboardist Rhett Huffman, drummer Ryan Van Fleet, and bassist Alden Hedges—at the height of their considerable powers.
The result is a record that rollicks and ruminates with equal profundity, cementing gravelly-voiced songwriter BJ Barham’s band among the upper echelon of modern Americana acts.
The album has issue-driven songs to rival Lamentations. Featuring airy harmonies from singer-songwriter Katie Pruitt and filling out patiently striding acoustic guitar and piano with anxious wisps of electric guitar and pedal steel, “Southern Roots” eyes good ole boys who still refuse to take down their losing flag, wisely observing, “If there’s one thing I’ve found / You can’t change the way you sound / You can only change the words that you choose.”
And the record processes grief and loneliness with equal sensitivity to Chicamacomico. Singing over keys, pedal steel, and guitars that wind like competing breezes tossing fall leaves, Barham recalls awakening to mortality through watching his family, particularly his father, whom he says he only saw cry when Dale Earnhardt died—“Raise hell / Praise Dale / Death’s coming for us all,” the singer somberly declares.
But The Fear of Standing Still distinguishes itself best when it imbues revving rockers with meaningful nuance. “Crier” opens the album with punk-spiked E Street thunder, stepping past an obvious skewering of outmoded masculinity (boys have feelings, too, it turns out) to revel in the power of making yourself heard—“If you are here, then you’ve been hurt, and you deserve / To be a crier!”
Shimmying and shaking with scuzzy abandon worthy of being exiled on Main Street, closer “Head Down, Feet Moving” celebrates the single-minded, somewhat insane drive that keeps a rock band going nearly two decades down the line—“I’ll keep screaming out my secrets if you swear to sing along!” Barham promises, offering an olive branch to the listeners lost along the way: “I appreciate you listening as long as you did!”
Some listeners will justifiably prefer the depth and focus of American Aquarium’s previous two albums. And while The Fear of Standing Still can feel a bit scattershot by comparison, it shows the impressive breadth of the band’s capabilities.
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