After ten years, two albums, an EP, and a single, the answer to Aaron’s brutal seeking comes in the form of his triumphant third chapter, IN LIEU OF FLOWERS. Not a collection of elegies so much as a concept opera, an ode to the underdog, à la the Mountain Goats’ All Hail West Texas or the Weakerthans’ Reunion Tour, Campbell and the band take AW20’s signature dynamics to new heights, marrying the crash of punk percussion and power chords with the roots twang of banjo and pedal steel, tracing the imaginary heartbreak-nomad’s turbulent arc toward healing, from the bottom of bottles in ashy motel rooms and desecrated basement venues––“gig’s in an abandoned church in Glasgow, the irony’s a little on the nose,” he sneers over plaintive fingerpicking on “Alone at St. Luke’s”––to the disorienting tarmac where he staggers on and off tour, to the passenger seat of a car with an old friend and new love, and, eventually, to the rehab facility where he gets his voice back. Longtime fans will recognize the bursts of Springsteenian horns, led by Chiemina Ukazim’s bombastic, stirring saxophone, that keep the pulse and grit of the working class East Coast close at hand. Louder and brasher than ever, and elsewhere even more intimate, more devastating, with keepsakes and callbacks––shorebirds, the hue of a certain citrus fruit, the interpolation of past horn arrangements––for those who’ve accompanied him on his journey from the beginning, Aaron West manages to stay as clear-eyed and wry as he’s ever been, the acid-spit humor that comes only from tragedy. IN LIEU OF FLOWERS isn’t about perfect choices, perfect endings, perfect people, it’s about fucking up, and learning how to be held again. In the record’s shocking final moments, Aaron, wrung out and made new, returns to the beginning of his story, a place he never fathomed he would ever go again. But if you know how to look, every return to the past promises something previously unimaginable, something new.
Wormy is the solo venture of Noah Rauchwerk, Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter and touring drummer for Samia. Collaborators on the project include Brotherkenzie of Hippo Campus and Baby Boys, Samia, Erik Paulson of Remo Drive, Nick Sebastiano of Another Michael, Little Hag, and Ian Grey of The Great American Novel. With Wormy, Rauchwerk seeks to tell moment-to-moment stories backed by a dynamic orchestration that mimics the scattered nature of daily life. It combines the simplistic songwriting of folk music with catchy, bouncy, and largely electronic arrangements that are impossible to resist moving to, even after being trapped in your tiny apartment for a year.
