Sweating under the spotlights at a ritzy club in Hollywood, scrappy frontman Aaron West of emo-Americana ensemble the Roaring Twenties, a bit out of his element, starts to slur his words. He’s lost more than he can count. His face burns with mounting anger––at the label, at his weary bandmates, at the sorry state of the world as it sputters back to life like a ’67 Mustang hot off cinder blocks, but above all at himself. 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.
