AMERICAN AQUARIUM : NEW WAYS TO LOSE

AMERICAN AQUARIUM : NEW WAYS TO LOSE

Dollar General
Can't Into Could
4X60
Twin Flames
Out There In The Dark
History Repeats Itself
Favorite Hello
Whatever Helps You Sleep At Night
Just Like You
Bad Habits

Label : Losing Side Records

Length : 34:37

Release Date : June 26, 2026

Review (Saving Country Music) : Here’s to those who do things the hard way on purpose, who sidestep the shortcuts even when they’re splayed out right there in front of them, that thrust themselves into the hardest jobs in pursuit of dwindling prospects in dying industries simply because someone still has to shoulder that burden. Here’s to doing things with a dogged, stubborn determination simply because others believe they can’t be done. This new album from North Carolina’s American Aquarium is for you. Some songs and albums pass over you like a cool, calming breeze, or confer a simple, easy joy in music that distract you from everyday anxieties and troubles. That’s not the experience of New Ways To Lose. It comes at you like a closed fist, threatening to leave a bruise. But it’s that bare knuckle delivery that makes the music and the message so potent, toughening up the skin and resolve of its audience for life’s real world challenges. If you need a rallying cry, this is your poison. Indulging in this album is like chugging a quart of motor oil for your weary soul. Songwriter and frontman BJ Barhamn opens the album making the audience ponder a town so destitute and upside down, even the Dollar General is shutting down. This isn’t an album to ferry you away from life’s troubles. It’s here to spit and snarl in your face, and speak to the true life trials and tribulations so many are facing in the late stage American empire. BJ Barham gets his fair share of criticism for being political in some of his songs and online presence. He doesn’t wilt from that reputation on New Ways To Lose whatsoever. But perhaps his words have never been more prescient and universal, irrespective of one’s political affiliations. “The worst trick ever played was taking our voice, and giving us two sides in the illusion of choice,” he sings on the opening song, giving few if anyone anything to argue with. “It ain’t left vs. right, it’s bottom vs. top. Until we figure it out this ain’t gonna stop.” Later in the album on the lead single “History Repeats Itself,” Barham again perfectly encapsulates a pretty common grievance by growling, “Woke up today and they’re tearing down another thing I love about this town. Little men in ill-fitting suits, making the decisions for me and you. Tall and skinny, cheap and fast. Who gives a damn how long they’ll last? Get the money, get out of town. Be long gone before it all falls down.” BJ Barham is never short of things to bark about, but that doesn’t mean there are some more meaningful moments for the album to capture, whether it’s the nostalgic sense of freedom from rolling the windows down instead of relying on A/C in the song “4X60,” or reminiscing about his dog in “Favorite Hello.” Frankly though, these are all outclassed by the reassuring passages of “Out There in the Dark” that will be taken as soul medicine for those who need to hear it, and be accused by some as being the best song on New Ways To Lose. The album does have a couple of more unexceptional moments. “Whatever Helps You Sleep At Night” is fine as a classic rock-style song, but struggles to lend to the deeper themes of the record. Producer Shooter Jennings adds some layers of noise to try and make the final song “Bad Habits” a bit more interesting, but it might end up just making it even more forgettable. You also wonder about the chimey melody of “Favorite Hello,” which takes you out of the more rustic mood of the rest of the record. Another accusation you might hear is that this album at times just sounds a little too close to Springsteen, not limited to the tail end of the “Dollar General” chorus. But just when you’re ready to accuse the second half of the album of being weaker than the first—and a song like “Just Like You” being a little to obvious with the way it looks to stir emotions—BJ Barham delivers the line “Her little fingers trace the divots of her last name carved in stone,” and it’s hard to not lose it. Barham knows how to push those emotional buttons better than most, and makes sure to deliver those moments throughout this album. Whatever weaker moments New Ways To Lose might have, the strong moments are so strong, it elevates the album to an elite status. Great albums rise to meet the moment and speak to it resolutely, and with authority. Never losing touch with the heavy emotions and hard choices so many of the people in his own audience are weighted down and faced with, BJ Barham and American Aquarium deliver an impassioned, propulsive, and potent experience to those unafraid to lose in life, and would rather do so than win the easy way.

Review (American UK) : A look back through the Americana UK archives will find plenty of references to American Aquarium, including a very rare 10 out of 10 review for their 2020 album Lamentations. Independent in all aspects of their music, the band could almost be poster boys for what this website is all about. Without a major label or mainstream radio support the band are proud of answering to nobody. American Aquarium own their publishing, launched their own festival and the latest release New Ways To Lose is again released independently through CJ Barham’s own Losing Side Records. Barham founded the band in 2006 and, twenty years and twenty albums later, is still writing songs that could sit quite easily within the catalogues of a Springsteen or a Mellancamp. Tackling themes like the downfall of small-town America, the yearning for true connection and the socioeconomic wreckage of unconstitutional politics, Barham’s lyrics paint pictures wrapped around a rock and roll soundtrack. Opening track Dollar General sets the tone and tempo of what is to come. Set to a pulsating rhythm the lyrics get straight to the heart of the issues facing small town USA, themes those aforementioned legends of the genre were addressing forty years ago. “This factory shut down in 93, now this town is a shadow of what it used to be……even the Dollar General is closing down, we’d fix it if we could, but we don’t know how.” Barham wrote Twin Flames for his wife and here, what is a heartfelt love song lyrically, is delivered in typically riotous fashion to a brass accompaniment that could have come straight out of the Clarence Clemons, E-Street Band playbook. That hugely impactful brass intervention typifies to a great extent what makes American Aquarium such a compelling listen. While the pace of the album rarely lets up, and certainly it is the guitars that drive the whole piece forward in the main, there are tracks like History Repeats Itself where it is the piano-driven accompaniment that stands out and offers the point of difference. It is these subtle changes of emphasis, along with Barham’s intelligent lyrics, that keep the album fresh and avoids a lapse into the territory of hackneyed rock and roll by numbers. Produced again by multi-time Grammy winner Shooter Jennings, New Ways To Lose was recorded in Los Angeles over a 10-day session with much of the record tracked live, with Jennings encouraging spontaneity and instinct over perfection. The album certainly has the energy of a live performance about it and, if any more encouragement were needed, then UK audiences could do a lot worse than seek the band out on their brief UK tour in the autumn.

Review (Add To Wantlist) : Twenty years into their quite prolific career, we know what Raleigh, North Carolina’s American Aquarium has to offer: it’s always solid, always heartfelt. Their latest album, New Ways to Lose, delivers clear-eyed reflections on small-town decline, personal responsibility, and the resilience needed to keep moving forward. The ten new tracks capture the band’s live energy (go see them when they’re in your area again), while adding subtle touches of harmony and horns that broaden their heartland rock sound without diluting its grit, in several ways Springsteen-esque at times. The honest songwriting and ragged vocals of the sympathetic frontman BJ Barham remain the focal point, pairing vibrant confessionals with vivid snapshots of contemporary America that feel deeply personal yet widely relatable. It gives rise to goosebumps at several moments, such as in Out There In The Dark (“I think everyone of us was born an artist // A painter, a poet with a pen // Some run out of time, never learned to make it rhyme // And some of us refuse to give in”), and even more so in Just Like You (“Her little fingers trace the divots, of her last name carved in stone // When I see her, I see the women that taught me everything they knew”)—a sequel to 2022’s The First Year (anyone who has heard the introduction to that song live will never forget it). Inspired by the idea that we’re all searching for new ways to lose, this record finds hope in perseverance rather than victory. It’s another powerful chapter from a band that continues to turn hard truths into communal, fist-raising anthems.

Review (Twangville) : With their 11th studio album New Ways to Lose, American Aquarium and front man BJ Barham continue to prove why they remain one of the most vital voices in Americana and roots rock. Produced once again by Shooter Jennings and tracked live over a 10-day session in Los Angeles, the record captures the band at its most immediate and energetic. After two decades on the road, this is their 20th anniversary as a band, it was brilliant for Shooter to capture raw energy of their live set. This is a sneaky record. It is the most up-tempo album they have made in a while. The “slappers and bangers”, as Barham like to call them, might make you think he is moving away from his penchant for writing sad songs. That is until you listen to the lyrics, which deliver the gut punch you have come to expect from Batham’s songwriting. The album opens strong with “Dollar General,” a pulsating rocker that nails the hollowed-out reality of small-town America. The metaphor of Dollar General is fitting. You can’t drive 5 miles in any direction in the rural South without passing a Dollar General. So, if the local Dollar General is shutting down, that is sign to roll up the sidewalks. Barham never lets the messaging overtake the music though. Instead, these songs pulse with the same anthemic drive that has made American Aquarium a live force for years. Subtle shifts— evoking Springsteen’s E Street Band on “Twin Flames,” piano-driven introspection elsewhere keep the ten track set dynamic and fresh. On a more intimate level, New Ways to Lose makes room for tenderness amid the stomp. The aforementioned “Twin Flames,” written for Barham’s wife, stands out as a heartfelt love song delivered with rowdy energy, while “Favorite Hello” confronts the gut-wrenching loss of a family pet with genuine heartbreak. The title itself is drawn from a sports announcer’s quip about Barham’s beloved NC State Wolfpack finding “new ways to lose”. In the end, New Ways to Lose feels like a victory lap. It is gritty, politically aware without preachiness, and deeply personal. It is proof that 20 years in, American Aquarium is still evolving while staying true to its independent spirit.