Aaron West And The Roaring Twenties are back with the announcement of a new album “In Lieu Of Flowers” out April 12th on Hopeless Records. The band has already released the self titled song as the first single of the album. Continuing the story of Aaron West this sees the band continue to grow not just in sound but in band members as well.
What makes the storytelling come alive is the buy-in,” Dan explains, comparing the project to pro-wrestling. “There’s this arena full of people and they know that person in the ring isn’t an undead zombie mortician. It’s a guy, his name is Mark, but they buy into it because that mass suspension of disbelief is where the magic is.”
To understand the story of In Lieu Of Flowers is to know where Aaron’s path has taken him so far. It all begins with the worst year of his life, marked by profound loss––grief, divorce and miscarriage––detailed on his 2014 debut, We Don’t Have Each Other, and 2016’s Bittersweet (EP).
2019’s Routine Maintenance begins a new chapter for Aaron, albeit short-lived. After a bar fight lands him in jail and he has no one to call, Aaron heads to Los Angeles for a fresh start where he occupies his time between crappy jobs and open mic nights. On the road playing gigs, he forms a band and they start to gain some traction before another blow hits his family––the loss of his brother-in-law.
He finds a new purpose in the aftermath; “I’m going to be someone you can count on for a change,” he sings on the album’s closing title track.The new album picks up where Routine Maintenance left off, starting from the solo tours that Dan went on shortly after its release––on stage, he talked about leaving the band to care for his grieving sister Catherine and nephew Colin, but that solo touring felt like shit. The band soon got back together––as documented on their Live From Asbury Park album recorded over the course of two December 2019 shows.
In the interceding years, Aaron is forced to finally tend to the wounds he’s ignored
for over a decade, and that brings us to In Lieu of Flowers.It’s a triumphant kind of melancholy that colors this entire record as Aaron learns that things don’t go away just because you ignore them. Its message is driven home thanks to the 16-piece band that helped bring it to life with guitar, accordion, keys, banjo, pedal steel, trumpets, trombone, saxophone, cello, and violin.
