For nearly two decades, American Aquarium have pushed toward that rare form of rock-and-roll that’s revelatory in every sense. “For us the sweet spot is when you’ve got a rock band that makes you scream along to every word, and it’s not until you’re coming down at three a.m. that you realize those words are saying something real about your life,” says frontman BJ Barham. “That’s what made us fall in love with music in the first place, and that’s the goal in everything we do.” On their new album The Fear of Standing Still, the North Carolina-bred band embody that dynamic with more intensity than ever before, endlessly matching their gritty breed of country-rock with Barham’s bravest and most incisive songwriting to date. As he reflects on matters both personal and sociocultural—e.g., the complexity of Southern identity, the intersection of generational trauma and the dismantling of reproductive rights—American Aquarium instill every moment of The Fear of Standing Still with equal parts unbridled spirit and illuminating empathy.
Recorded live at the legendary Sunset Sound in Los Angeles, The Fear of Standing Still marks American Aquarium’s second outing with producer Shooter Jennings—a three-time Grammy winner who also helmed production on 2020’s critically lauded Lamentations, as well as albums from the likes of Brandi Carlile and Tanya Tucker. In a departure from the stripped-down subtlety of 2022’s Chicamacomico (a largely acoustic rumination on grief), the band’s tenth studio LP piles on plenty of explosive riffs and hard-charging rhythms, bringing a visceral energy to the most nuanced and poetic of lyrics.
While American Aquarium bring a lived-in intimacy to all of The Fear of Standing Still, songs like “Cherokee Purples” encompass a particularly tender emotionality. A wistful reminiscence of all the charmed and wild summers of Barham’s youth, the track unfolds in so many gorgeously detailed images (kudzu vines and fireflies, menthol cigarettes and Big League Chew), each rendered with a loving specificity that lingers in the listener’s heart. “‘Cherokee Purples’ came from me making a tomato sandwich in my kitchen, and immediately getting taken back to all the summer days when we’d get dropped off at my grandmother’s so my parents could go to work,” says Barham. “It’s crazy how something as simple as a tomato sandwich with Duke’s Mayonnaise can take me to a whole other world, but to me it’s almost like a talisman of where I’m from and how I was raised.” Meanwhile, on “The Curse of Growing Old,” American Aquarium look to the other end of the life spectrum, conjuring a life-affirming mood despite the song’s excruciating honesty.
For Barham, the sharing of hard truths is indelibly tied to his sense of devotion to American Aquarium’s audience—and to his belief in rock-and-roll as a singularly unifying force. “All I really want to do is put words to the emotions that most people have a difficult time expressing on their own,” he reveals. “No matter what that emotion is, when you put it into a song and then get to those moments when a whole bunch of people are singing that song all together, it makes you see that you’re part of something bigger than you ever realized. That’s when you can really affect people’s lives, and to me this record is another stepping stone to making that a reality.”