Album Review – American Aquarium’s ‘Wolves”
2015 just might be the year of American Aquarium, or that’s at least the popular sentiment being kicked around in certain circles. If this prophesy eventually comes true, it would be against the odds and conventional wisdom. Bands on their eighth album and in their eighth year of existence are rarely in a position to break out. It doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen, but in most cases if it was going to happen, it would have happened already. But this reality in itself is some of the red meat that fuels what Bandsintown named the “Most Active Act” in 2014 as a result of American Aquarium’s incessant touring and tireless, headlong pursuit of making it, and making it on their own terms.
American Aquarium is one of the easiest bands to root for as a fan of independent music. They work hard, are brutally honest and earnest in their songwriting, and bleed their hearts out on stage every night. This is a blue collar band if there ever was one, barreling down the road to play for barely enough money to get them to the next gig, blindly believing that the payoff is somewhere down the line, while living in a reality where they once watched Florida Georgia Line open for them on the fast track to the arena circuit, while they’re still stuck worrying about getting their van stolen.
But just maybe 2015 is the year that all changes, and the impetus for that change amongst theorists has been this new album, Wolves. Written and recorded after a long hiatus between releases, American Aquarium took their time with this one, letting the songs maturate, and allowing a stylistic shift in their sound to emerge; something that would hopefully get them over that hump to becoming a self-sustaining band capable of supporting themselves and potential families. Their Jason Isbell-produced and critically-acclaimed 2012 album Burn.Flicker.Die had already given them a decent boost, and now it was time to finish the job.
Wolves finds American Aquarium dedicated to a distinctly different sound and approach to their music, while still broaching familiar subjects in the lyricism handled by singer, guitar player, and frontman BJ Barham. Unless you’ve been to an American Aquarium show lately, the shift may feel pretty remarkable to you, if not shocking.
Where American Aquarium built their sound on is this Southern rock, heavy and rootsy roar with a lot of rawness and emotion expelled in their music unfettered—or at least this would be the best way to describe Burn.Flicker. Die—Wolves is an entirely different vibe. The music is stylized and quite compositional-based, with unintuitive chord changes catching your ear off guard in certain songs, choreographed rhythm parts, especially compared to most country rock bands, and musicianship that in many of the songs eschews overdriven power chords to instill a delicate complexity to the music through fairly intricate arrangement.
It takes only a few seconds into the first song “Family Problems,” and the almost prog rock bass line lifting out of the shadows to demand your attention, that you appreciate this effort isn’t going to be entirely as expected. There’s not a lot of groove in this album. Most songs are articulated and texturized. Adding to the unexpectedness of the sound is BJ Barham’s hushed singing voice compared to his more familiar aggressive singing of years past. American Aquarium 8.0 is most certainly a different animal, and keeps you on your toes.
But the question is if any of these stylistic changes are effective. Time will tell, but for this listener, though the overall effort has to be considered more positive than negative, the music just feels a little over-thought, a little over-arranged, with little room for the songs to freely breathe, and in the end the album feels hampered by the production. Yes we can finally hear that bass guitar that is so often buried in the mix, but do we really want to hear it? Isn’t it best if it blends into the background, and doesn’t distract from what is very much a lyric-driven band?

Something else dogging this recording is how BJ Barham’s voice is cast nearly the entire time with this faraway feel. Wolves is very much a live, organic effort, and that remains one of the album’s strong points. However once again we’re hearing an album presented with less than ideal clarity under the short-sighted theory that things sound better if they sound just a bit scratchy like all of those old records. I would have preferred Barham’s voice dried out a bit, and because he spends so much time singing in these hushed tones, he’s missing the sweet spot in his voice in hopes of capturing a more artistic feel to the music.
As mentioned before, American Aquarium’s changes seem mostly confined to the sonic realm, and the words are what we’ve come to expect from American Aquarium—brutally honest assessments of life as struggling musicians, constantly filled with self-doubt and guilt emanating from the home front, and the unfortunate results of losing your sense of youth by throwing yourself headlong towards a dream. But when this same theme comes up song after song, you wonder if American Aquarium is talking a little too much shop, and not singing about things most listeners can relate to more universally. Certainly the first rule of songwriting is to write what you know about, but maybe the van life has seeped a little too much into the Aquarium psyche.
The exceptions to these above concerns is arguably when Wolves really shines. “Wichita Falls” is a beast a lot more indicative of past American Aquarium efforts, with a guitar-driven groove, BJ Barham singing from his gut through a clearer signal, with the sharp edges of a growl adding exclamation points to his proclamations of heartbreak, and bullets beside his testimony of bad luck. “Old North State” also finds an excellent groove, even if I’d prefer to hear Barham singing with more volume, from his lungs and not his throat, and in a higher register where the pain in his voice is more evident. The “Wolves” title track is also one of the standouts of the effort.
And even if I’d second guess the music decisions on songs like “Southern Sadness” and “Losing Side of 25,” these are excellently-written compositions on their own that are worth listening to, even if the musical approach is a little out of your wheelhouse. And no, those concerns aren’t just coming from a country music critic, or someone who fell in love with American Aquarium’s previous approach and is wary of change. It’s more about finding the sweet spot of the American Aquarium sound, and sticking a little closer to that, even if you want to indulge in a little more sonic exploration.
Wolves is a solid album, and some of the issues enumerated here might be the very things that eventually bestow American Aquarium the wider audience they’ve worked so hard for and deserve. Wolves takes some chances, and tries some different things, and you certainly can’t fault them for that. It will be interesting to sit back and see how 2015 receives this bold and daring effort.
1 1/4 of 2 Guns Up.
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February 4, 2015 @ 10:59 am
I, for one, applaud the unintuitive and complex choices they made in the arrangements. I like to be surprised by adventurous musicianship, and I think this album delivers that in a tasteful way. I agree, however, that the theme of the road-weary traveling musician comes up a bit too often in the subject matter.
I also think that Barham sometimes judges small-town life a bit too harshly. Or, more often than not, the issues he raises with rural life are the same ones countless songwriters have noted before, and he doesn’t seem to offer a lot of new insight into the topic.
I think your score is fair. It’s a good album, but not a great one. I’ll continue to cheer for American Aquarium. They work hard to move the needle in the right direction. I hope they achieve what they set out to do.
February 4, 2015 @ 12:06 pm
Haven’t listened to the album, but I really enjoyed the line about “talking a little too much shop, and not singing about things most listeners can relate to more universally.”
This is something I feel like happens to a lot of artists in all sorts of creative fields. Like when all of a comedian’s jokes are about airports, hotels, and movie sets. When they draw material from their everyday life, and their life becomes something totally unrelatable to the average person, it can definitely take away from the connection with fans.
February 4, 2015 @ 1:03 pm
I really liked this album. I wasn’t at all a fan of Burn.Flicker.Die and was okay with them retiring after that recording. But, I think the musical experimentation we see here is interesting and worth a listen. Whether it helps them “break through” or not, doesn’t really matter. Like you pointed out, Barham sure sounds miserable about his life on the road, so assuming it isn’t played up for image sake, maybe he’d be better off settling down. This won’t likely displace Small Town Hymns as my favourite AA release, but it was a decent listen with some really good songs. With the recent surge of high quality country influenced songwriters though (Cory Branam, Sturgill Simpson, John Moreland, Matt Woods, Jason Isbell…) I just don’t think this is anywhere near the top of musical chain.
February 4, 2015 @ 1:04 pm
i love this f***ing band! I know what you mean about them singing about van/band life a lot, but as a person who has lived that, it feels good to have someone “understand.” Great/fair review. Hope to see them get a little more notice this year.
February 4, 2015 @ 3:46 pm
I saw them in Raleigh last Saturday for the album release party. They put on a helluva live show! John Moreland and Turnpike Troubadours opened for them and were awesome as well!
February 4, 2015 @ 4:28 pm
Is this album an iTunes exclusive or something? Just wondering because I havent seen it on any streaming services (like Google Play or Spotify) nor have I seen it available to purchase through Google’s Music store. When I tried to buy it off Amazon (a physical copy) nothing comes up either.
As someone who does not use iTunes it’s been frustrating trying to get my hands on a copy of the album for some reason. Anybody know anything about it?
February 4, 2015 @ 5:30 pm
I noticed that too. Not sure what’s going on there. About a month ago the band put out a big missive of how they love Spotify and don’t care how you consume their music, just that you consume it. But aside from iTunes or the SoundCloud below, or their personal web store, it’s kind of hard to find. That’s why I posted the Soundcloud player here.
February 4, 2015 @ 6:17 pm
What I thought was most weird was the fact I could not purchase a physical copy on Amazon. I know some bands and artists are against streaming, so I’m somewhat used to not being able to find an album on streaming sites like Spotify or Google, but the fact you don’t seem able to buy a copy on a major retailer like Amazon or even buy a digital copy on Amazon or Google seems very weird and counter productive in the sense that all the great buzz this album and it may not be able to be heard by large numbers of potential fans.
February 4, 2015 @ 6:28 pm
It very well could be that it shows up in other avenues here soon. Sometimes bands delay releasing albums on specific formats to get an album to perform well on one format to create buzz, like on iTunes’ albums charts. If everyone has to go to one outlet to buy it, it will fare better than people going to different outlets and having those sales aggregate in different places. Not saying that’s what’s happening here, I’m just guessing. I always advocate for artists to make their music as available as possible. I don’t use iTunes either, so I wouldn’t have an option for purchasing it aside from directly from the band.
February 4, 2015 @ 6:31 pm
Okay now I’m seeing they said on Twitter,
“Starting next week WOLVES will be available on Spotify, Google, Amazon and all of your other favorite music retailers. Boom”
February 4, 2015 @ 9:38 pm
Great news, thanks for passing that along Trigger.
February 5, 2015 @ 9:38 am
It seems like there may have been a mistake somewhere. I made a comment on Twitter about it being odd how they came out supporting Spotify and the album wasn’t on there. They replied back saying they were working on fixing that.
February 4, 2015 @ 6:31 pm
I loved Burn.Flicker.Die. So my expectations were pretty high for this. About halfway through, and I’m digging it.
February 5, 2015 @ 7:35 am
I agree with the review. I found AA late, after Burn.Flicker.Die was mentioned on this site. Although it took me a little while to get used to it, I loved BJ’s gritty and raw singing voice on that record and previous ones. Like you said, that’s largely absent from Wolves. That, along with the warm and more complex composition, I think causes this record as a whole to lack the uniqueness I think it needs. Still hope it does well for them though.
February 5, 2015 @ 12:43 pm
As a big American Aquarium fan and a supporter of the band’s successful crowdsourcing campaign I’ve had the album digitally for about a month and I also saw them live last night in DC. First off Trigger, thanks for the honest, inspired, well written review; although I’m a bit disappointed with the “number” you gave the album, but I really can’t disagree with any of your sentiments. And the band even admits that Wolves is not as “country” as some of their earlier work. When I first listened to the album I must admit I was underwhelmed. So I waited for a week and listened a few more times and it grew on me more and more since then.
February 5, 2015 @ 2:05 pm
I’m disappointed with the number too. I consternated over this more than anything else about the review, and in the end felt it was my fair assessment.
January 8, 2016 @ 2:34 pm
I played with an opening band for AA at a show last year….had never heard of them before then…..became a fan that night and will continue to be. I like just about everything they have done.
Side story: At this opener gig, I saw BJ and was like I know this guy. It bothered the heck out of me. So, after some time, I put two and two together and it turns out he attended high school at the same school i taught at for a year back in 00/01. Small world.