American Aquarium

Americana country.  According to Wikipedia, their band name came from the Wilco song "I am Trying to Break Your Heart."  I know that everyone is supposed to love Yankee Hotel Foxtrot with the burning desire of a thousand suns, but it has never been my favorite of the Wilco library.  And that particular tune definitely never did it for me.  So now this band ends up with a rather unwieldy band name so that they can name check the super hip Wilco.

Regardless of that boring dissection of their band name, their music is great.  I like the band a lot. They have eight albums stretching back from 2006's Antique Hearts to 2015's Wolves.  According to the Internet, 2012's Burn. Flicker. Die. is the most popular and critically acclaimed of the batch.  I like the sound, brings to mind the old Whiskeytown tunes from before Wilco came along.  I also read some comparisons to Springsteen on this album, and I don't disagree to the extent that all heartland-y rockers sound a little like Springsteen.  Their second most listened-to track is the title track off of Burn. Flicker. Die. with just under 200k listens.

This album is kind of country-punk sound to me.  The singer's gravelly voice hollers out lyrics kind of like a Gaslight Anthem or Dropkick Murphys.  But the music is well-done alt-country-punk jam. Their most popular track (by quite a bit) is "I Hope He Breaks Your Heart" (maybe in response to Wilco's I am Trying to Break Your Heart?) off of 2009's Dances for the Lonely, which has over 250k listens on Spotify.

Slow burner of a country song, all about the vengeance requested on a lady who broke the singer's heart.  "I hope you feel the way I do now!"  And finally, because you should get real video and not just all still images, here is the title track off of the new album, which is currently slotted in as second most popular but only has 60k listens:

I dig it.  Sounds like a gruff Jackson Browne with a slide guitar.  The whole new album is a little more rock than the prior discs, but has a tight southern alt-country sound.  They had better be careful or royalty-grabbing Tom Petty is going to come after them for "Southern Sadness."  If I've got the right schedule, I'd dig going to see these guys play live.