\u201cYou taught me that there was more to life than a constant state of motion
Introduced me to the fine art of staying in one place
So when the fear of standing still asks if I like the path I’ve chosen
I find the answers in the corners of the smile on your face\u201d<\/p>\n
— \u201cThe Fear Of Standing Still\u201d by BJ Barham<\/i><\/p>\n
The thing about Bruce Springsteen is, he was uniquely positioned at a unique point in time to do what he did. Both a born storyteller and a traditionalist rock and roller at a time when the genre was splintering, he spun out novelistic tales in his songs, rich with layers of vivid imagery and powerful, complicated emotions. Friendships torn apart by circumstance, young lovers desperate to escape a small town, fathers and sons, and the weight of heritage: how it shapes us and how we fight it just the same. <\/p>\n
Singer-songwriter BJ Barham, the founder and storytelling voice at the heart of American Aquarium, has never shied away from acknowledging what his music owes to Springsteen. There\u2019s a vibrancy, craft and appealing grit to Barham\u2019s songs that makes the best of them feel like they\u2019re pumping the spirit of Darkness On The Edge of Town<\/i> through their veins, a searingly potent blend of desperation and hope. Here, Barham channels all of those traits into a song cycle about loneliness, fear, and the redemptive power of love.<\/p>\n
Barham and his band\u2014named after a Wilco lyric and for once appearing settled into the powerful yet versatile lineup of Shane Boeker (guitar), Rhett Huffman (keys), Neil Jones (pedal steel), Ryan Van Fleet (drums) and Alden Hedges (bass)\u2014have issued a series of albums over the past decade that have each advanced the group\u2019s musical cause in some way: sharper lyrics, stronger arrangements, more fluid yet precise performances. Again and again they\u2019ve reached for something a little bit bolder and sharper and better, and I\u2019m hoping that striving will continue, but it\u2019s also true to say that their tenth studio album The Fear Of Standing Still<\/i> represents the pinnacle of American Aquarium\u2019s recorded work to date, an album of breathtaking power and sinewy ease, a blue-jeaned, plain-spoken work of art.<\/p>\n
Credit must go to producer Shooter Jennings, a master at keeping things simple and focused exactly where these songs should be: on the stories being told and the emotions roiling inside them. Opener and first single \u201cCrier\u201d is a brilliant construction, an urgent, muscular anthem aimed at exposing the toxic undercurrents of American masculinity, with the band lending a huge rock and roll surge as Barham wails \u201cDealing with our feelings is essential to survival \/ Hell, it\u2019s right there in the shortest verse in the Bible.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d set a match to a second chance so fast, it\u2019ll take your breath away,\u201d sings Barham on the easygoing, steadily pushing \u201cMessy As A Magnolia,\u201d before crediting his partner for the save: \u201cShe ran into a house on fire to offer up some help \/ Saw something inside of me that I still can\u2019t see in myself.\u201d Here and elsewhere, the sandy edges of Barham\u2019s vocal instrument only accentuate the emotion infused in memorable lines like \u201cWhat part of I ain\u2019t leaving don\u2019t you understand.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nostalgia takes the wheel for \u201cCherokee Purples\u201d as Barham slips inside a vivid memory of summer days at his grandmother\u2019s house, an airy number lit up by a silvery, lilting riff that lands the listener right there in her kitchen. \u201cThe Getting Home\u201d is a widescreen four-on-the-floor rocker essaying the road warrior\u2019s dilemma: you\u2019re lonely on the road and restless when you\u2019re home. The surging music behind Barham is majestic, yearning and melancholy all at once, making that first paragraph above feel all but inevitable.<\/p>\n
Still, the most memorable song here is probably \u201cSouthern Roots,\u201d a stunner in the Jason Isbell-Patterson Hood tradition of Southern white dudes trying to do better, co-written by Barham and Katie Pruitt, who contributes harmony vocals. Over a shimmery backdrop of acoustic guitar, slide, piano and organ, Barham sings of being \u201chaunted by the history,\u201d observing that \u201cIf there\u2019s one thing I found \/ You can\u2019t change the way you sound \/ You can only change the words you choose.\u201d It\u2019s already haunting before Boeker\u2019s warbly, arcing electric guitar notes cap it off.<\/p>\n
Continuing his push through one tough subject after another, Barham tackles mortality on \u201cThe Curse of Growing Old,\u201d a steady-on mid-tempo number with bracingly direct lyrics: \u201cThe only thing more terrifying \/ Than coming face to face with dying \/ Is learning there\u2019s a price we all must pay \/ For another day.\u201d (That price is change, and losing loved ones along the way.) The title track opens with this brilliant line\u2014\u201cThe sky today was an extra special shade of lonely\u201d\u2014before digging into a somber, insightful tune about the loneliness of the road life, the tug of home, and the restlessness underneath it all, a song that ultimately distills things down to a simple plea: \u201cDon\u2019t go. Please stay.\u201d <\/p>\n
The redemptive power of love is again the focus for \u201cPiece By Piece,\u201d a piano ballad about a lover rescuing him from himself. \u201cYou pulled me put of a hole I\u2019d been digging,\u201d sings Barham, \u201cSmiled and said you ain\u2019t gonna get rid of me that easy.\u201d The country-rock elements of the group\u2019s sonic palette then come to the fore on \u201cBabies Having Babies,\u201d a moving, naturalistic tale of young love, hard choices and consequences.<\/p>\n
Barham and band close things out strong with \u201cHead Down, Feet Moving,\u201d a celebratory, hard-charging rocker featuring big, fuzzy electric guitar and barrelhouse piano. \u201cNothing that came easy ever stood the test of time,\u201d he declares, telling the audience that \u201cI promise I\u2019ll keep showing up just as long as you do \/ I’ll keep screaming out my secrets if you swear to sing along.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a beautiful coda celebrating the communion between performer and audience, the connection that bands like American Aquarium chase after every night. There are no easy songs here, and no wasted words either. BJ Barham and American Aquarium have made an album animated by a fearless integrity and lit up with magnificent performances. That said, in the end it all comes down to heart, and The Fear Of Standing Still<\/i> has enough of that to embrace us all. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":35070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[10618],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-46947","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\/46947","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=46947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46947"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}