Aaron West & The Roaring Twenties

Aaron West & the Roaring Twenties is not just a folk rock project, but also a character study conducted through music. The Wonder Years frontman Dan Campbell

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 o felegies so much as a concept opera, an ode to the underdog, à la the Mountain Goats’All HailWest Texas or the Weaker thans ’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