American Aquarium come out of Raleigh, North Carolina with an indie-rock sound that has enough country swagger to it to keep this particular blogger engaged. Their sophomore album, The Bible & The Bottle has been out for so long there really isn’t anything I could say about it that hasn’t already been said in other places where real professionals write, but I will say it’s pretty freakin’ awesome and you should check it out.
American Aquarium features a sound that’s been described as Whiskeytown meets Lucero (I’d add a touch of Roger Hoover when he was a Whiskeyhound instead of a Magpie) and on The Bible & The Bottle they embrace that comparison, going so far as to bring Whiskeytown’s producer Greg Elkins into produce it, getting Whiskeytown’s drummer Skillet Gilmore to do the artwork and even featuring Caitlin Cary on backing vocals on some of the tracks.
We’re kind of in a weird position with American Aquarium. I just found out about them a couple of months ago, and as a result we’re a year late talking about The Bible & The Bottle but we’re writing about them while they’re on the edge of releasing a new album, Dances for the Lonely, come April 25. The Whiskeytown connections continue to run deep on the new album, which finds Caitlin Cary returning for backup vocals detail while Chris Stamey (Whiskeytown, Ben Folds Five, The Rosebuds) takes the producer role. Hopefully the band doesn’t try to reinvent themselves on Dances for the Lonely and they continue to build on the sound they’ve already established.
