\u201cIt\u2019s been the kind of year that damn near broke us in two\u201d
\u2013 \u201cChicamacomico\u201d by BJ Barham<\/i><\/p>\n
The day after election day 2016, a friend made this observation about the suddenly clouded future: \u201cYeah\u2014but the art is gonna be great.\u201d I had a similar feeling at a certain point in summer 2020\u2014as in, this year is incredibly hard, but there\u2019s something about the experience of loss and the necessity of resilience that challenges us to continue evolving.<\/p>\n
Loss and resilience\u2014along with the possibility of growth and redemption\u2014are pretty much American Aquarium singer\/songwriter\/bandleader BJ Barham\u2019s wheelhouse, as we are reminded once again on the group\u2019s ninth studio album Chicamacomico<\/i>. Maybe it\u2019s the times, or maybe it\u2019s the time of life Barham is living through, or maybe it\u2019s that he\u2019s kept the same lineup behind him for two albums in a row (a notable accomplishment given AA\u2019s revolving-door history), but this feels like the most mature, thoughtful, and accomplished American Aquarium album yet. As on 2020\u2019s superb Lamentations<\/i><\/a>, Barham\u2019s heartfelt songs are again burnished into rough-hewn gems by Shane Boeker (guitars), Rhett Huffman (keys), Neil Jones (pedal steel), Ryan Van Fleet (drums), and Alden Hedges (bass), a tight combo that plays like a roots-rock orchestra, channeling The Band on one tune, Jason Isbell on another, and Wilco on a third, evolving from arrangement to arrangement with the moods of the songs.<\/p>\n The stately, riveting opening title track sets the pace, channeling all the loneliness and alienation of lockdown into the tale of a couple who\u2019ve suffered a miscarriage. When Barham sings the gut-wrenching line \u201cI never knew hard until I took apart that room that never got used\u201d it\u2019s expressing grief of an intensity and magnitude that\u2019s difficult to grasp, the death of every dream you once held for the future of a child. It also feels like an echo of what much of 2020 felt like for so many\u2014that scale of loss, repeated and multiplied by the millions all feeling it together.<\/p>\n As devastating as \u201cChicamacomico\u201d is, second track \u201cLittle Things\u201d is its opposite in every respect, a lilting, moving, autobiographical celebration of the domestic bliss brought on by being forced off the road. \u201cI\u2019ve spent my whole life with one foot out the door,\u201d he admits, \u201cIt finally took putting down what I was working on \/ To see what I was working for.\u201d Barham loves Springsteen, that\u2019s as obvious as the sun, but what this track makes clear is that he loves more than just the man\u2019s iconic \u201970s classics. This song is Barham\u2019s \u201cBook Of Dreams<\/a>\u201d and \u201cLiving Proof\u201d wrapped into one, a pure and mature statement of reordered priorities: \u201cI used to be a singer with a family back home \/ Now I\u2019m just a father and a husband, who knows his way around a microphone.\u201d<\/p>\n The country elements of the group\u2019s sound come to the fore on the rippling, difficult \u201cJust Close Enough,\u201d a clear-eyed look at those moments in a relationship when \u201cIt\u2019s like we\u2019re speaking two different languages\u2026 Drowning in overtime, raising a couple kids \/ Ignoring our problems just like our parents did.\u201d The theme of loss returns with \u201cThe First Year,\u201d a sweet and powerful piece about Barham mourning his mother (\u201cYou left in such a hurry, I had so much left to say\u201d) that demonstrates how holidays can function as both mileposts and triggers in the grieving process. It makes perfect sense that the next song (\u201cBuilt To Last\u201d) is a big-boned anthem celebrating the resilience of love, because after all “what is grief if not love, persevering?\u201d (in the eloquent words of Jac Schaeffer, writer of WandaVision<\/i> episode 8). By the time you get to the song\u2019s final line, Barham has made the connection crystal clear: \u201cThese scars are just the stories of the storms we\u2019ve made it through.\u201d Yeah. <\/p>\n The incendiary love \/ story song \u201cWildfire\u201d calls that initial romantic impulse \u201cthe simplest of desires\u201d before turning formula into art by continuing the narrative past the infatuation stage all the way to the relationship\u2019s fiery end, to which he applies this indelible coda: \u201cAnd if there\u2019s one thing I\u2019ve learned \/ There\u2019s a part of death that\u2019s magic \/ Destroying something to make way for something else to grow.\u201d Oof.<\/p>\n \u201cAll The Things We\u2019ve Lost Along The Way\u201d and \u201cWaking Up The Echoes\u201d offer two more compelling examinations of loss and our efforts to make sense of and heal from it. Then \u201cThe Hardest Thing\u201d offers a character study that\u2019s also a cautionary tale, speculating on how things might have turned out for Barham if he hadn\u2019t gotten sober. Jones\u2019 steel guitar accents add pathos as Barham\u2019s alcoholic narrator sings that \u201cHaving to learn to live without you is the hardest thing I\u2019ve ever done.\u201d<\/p>\n Closing out this tight, taut 32-minute album, \u201cAll I Needed\u201d pumps up the volume for an anthem about the uplifting power of anthems, a fervent thank-you to a song with the ability to \u201cPull me back into the light.\u201d It\u2019s a rousing finale with a dozen quotable lines that I\u2019ll leave unquoted here so that, like the narrator of the song, you too can experience \u201ca spiritual change\u201d from \u201ca song I didn\u2019t recognize.\u201d<\/p>\n Chicamacomico<\/i>\u2014named for a historical landmark near the Outer Banks retreat where Barham isolated himself to write this album\u2014is a finely crafted work of art that also manages to feel loose and organic under the watchful eye of producer Brad Cook. It\u2019s an album that speaks to the moment we\u2019re all inhabiting while keeping its focus unflinchingly personal, a masterful set of songs from a songwriter now fully dedicated to making music that matters, the kind that makes us all want to work harder at becoming that better version of ourselves hidden away inside our hearts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":34522,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[10618],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-46367","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-american-aquarium","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46367"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}