Aaron West and The Roaring Twenties – In Lieu of Flowers | Album Review

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Hopeless Records

Buffalo Bills faithful Aaron West can’t seem to catch a break these days—or ever. On In Lieu of Flowers, the third full-length album of Dan Campbell’s solo project, we find West most chained to his vices.

Anyone familiar with Campbell’s songwriting in The Wonder Years knows the man is sick with nostalgia. It pierces through his writing like no other, yet he continuously finds ways to keep it rewarding and refreshing. When TWY released The Greatest Generation in 2013, the pop-punk cognoscenti declared the band’s three-album run triumphant. The Philadelphian six-piece had successfully crafted a trilogy on growing up and, in the process, had created something larger than themselves that millions of fans connected with, even a decade later. Even with this achievement, the band continued to write and release albums, although they had largely laid their signature pop-punk sound to rest. 

A year after TWY cemented themselves as pop-punk royalty, Aaron West was born. Campbell’s construction of “Aaron West” speaks to the ever-growing nature and evolution of his songwriting. He carefully crafted West as a snake-bitten alcoholic musician from New Jersey who struggles in the way most of us do. His music career is faltering, his relationship is crumbling, and his loved ones are dying. At heart, Campbell is a storyteller who’s found his niche in songwriting, and as we come upon the end of yet another trilogy in his musical universe, there’s no question as to why everything he touches turns to gold.

Before diving into In Lieu of Flowers, I would be remiss not to start at the project’s debut album since the Aaron West albums all tell a very intentional chronological story. As a brief recap of We Don’t Have Each Other, the inception of Aaron West details the worst year of his life in which his father passes, his wife suffers a miscarriage, and his wife leaves him. This is all capped off with his contemplation of drowning himself in the ocean, chased by a Mountain Goats cover that acts as a palette cleanser. Now, another EP, single, and album’s worth of lore has conspired in the 10 years since that first dispatch, however, the most important aspect to know going into ILOF is that, despite slapping band-aids on old wounds, we find that West never took the time to properly heal from the events of that fateful year depicted on his first album.

ILOF kicks off with our nomadic protagonist claiming, “It feels like shit to be alone again.” Track one of the LP, “Smoking Rooms,” starts somber and explodes into an existential apex torn between the less-than-glamorous life of a solo musician and being someone his family can count on.

This, more than anything, seems to be the all-encapsulating theme of the album. On the project’s sophomore release, Routine Maintenance, we listen as the project grows from just Aaron West to Aaron West and the Roaring Twenties. He comes to find family and meaning in what began merely as a solo project to sing his woes. Additionally, he finds meaning in life with his nephew Colin that he couldn’t find anywhere else. With both of their dad’s abrupt passings, West took it upon himself to be the father figure that both were suddenly lacking. Fast forward five years and West’s neglect of his mental health has begun to chip away at everything he once found joy in.

The third installment of Aaron West’s story leans into his folk-tinged americana sound more than ever. Track three, “Paying Bills at the End of the World,” most notably pays homage to this sound with West singing the blues set to the melancholic wanes of the lap steel. The lyrics update the listener on the lull in West’s life during the global pandemic of 2020. He sings the sorrows of every malcontent US citizen that year: dreaming of catching COVID and simply dying because we can't afford health insurance.

In spite of all the gloom in his world, Campbell still injects humor and irony into his writing. In the same song, we hear West whimper, “Of doves and palms and cartoon Jesus dying on the cross I say he must be running late.” Poking fun at his broken relationship with religion, the band’s music video for this song ironically takes place in a church. 

While this project is a concept at its core, it takes place in the world as we know it. West, like the rest of us, put our lives on pause while COVID ran rampant through the world. Campbell uses this to further push the authenticity of the project. He weaves truths throughout West’s story, as seen on track 5, “Alone at St. Luke’s.” During an IRL 2022 tour, the Twenties all caught COVID, with Campbell being the only one to duck the sickness. The band was forced to fly home and Campbell stayed in Glasgow to finish the tour solo. It’s also in this track where we get a call back to LP1 highlight “Get Me Out of Here Alive,” in which West now claims that “The stained-glass light just punched me in the chest.”

Additionally, Campbell did his due diligence in crafting the character of Aaron West. He describes the character as “a little bit of everyone I’ve ever met”. What makes Aaron West’s story so special is this genuineness. Campbell entwines truths and lived experiences into his fictional character, which contributes to its legitimacy. While there are parts of the story that Campbell admits to having happened in real life, we’ll truly never know what parts are and are not fictitious. Despite this, the listener doesn’t doubt that any of the events in West’s trilogy are fabricated because they deal with very real and dwelled human troubles.

Photo by Mitchell Wojick

My favorite aspect of this album is how it contains the first-ever love song we get from Aaron West. After rekindling with an old flame from high school early on the album, we find the first occurrence of West showing even the slightest amount of interest in someone romantically who is not Diane, his ex-wife. A new character in the Aaron West story is introduced on track 4, “Monongahela Park.” Sam, whom West hadn’t seen in years, knows nothing of the West that we’ve come to know and love. Even with this opportunity to start fresh, West’s calloused heart can’t bring himself to let her in.

Believe it or not, ILOF is also the most emo we find Aaron West. He’s in a begrudgingly sour fight with himself and what he wants in life. Between the band, his broken love life, his lack of belief in a higher power, and his surging alcoholism, West is tearing at the seams. Tracks 6 and 7 are where we get the lowest of West. Hanging onto every last bit of popularity from the Twenties’ fizzling fame, West is burning every last bridge in an alcohol-fueled frenzy as he exclaims, “I’ll see you in the water.”

Regardless of how much West wants to give up and succumb to his addiction, the people in his life won’t let him. After checking himself into rehab on track 9, “Runnin’ Out of Excuses,” West finds his next move. The track starts slow over piano, with West watching the Bills choke away yet another promising year. It moves into an upbeat and nostalgia-lined recap of his time in rehab. West acknowledging his fuck ups bring us that much closer to the album's penultimate track, “In Lieu of Flowers.”

The track was released as the first single with the announcement of the album, likely because it’s the most conquering track on the record, however, we now know that this song ties up all the loose ends of the album. Listening to this track before and after knowing the events of the album reframes the song's meaning. Kicking off the track with a catchy horn melody contributed by producer Ace Enders, the song hooks listeners instantly. It’s in this track where West is mending the bridges that he burnt throughout the album. Even though Sam, his nephew Colin, his sister Catherine and the Twenties “could’ve told him to fuck himself,” they encourage him to brush the dirt off the grave that he dug for himself.

Photo by Mitchell Wojick

There are a million story beats and easter eggs that can be found throughout the Aaron West discography, and that’s what makes it so enjoyable to dig into. At this point in his story, every track is a must-listen, not just for the musical brilliance, but to catch every detail that caps off what could be the end of the Aaron West story. The bookend tale divulges the struggles of family, love, and religion. Much like those Bills teams of the 2000s, West was struggling to get his shit together long enough to reap the harvest. He found support and solace in those he thought would leave him for dead.

What makes The Wonder Years everyone’s favorite pop-punk band is that they’re entirely relatable. Campbell finds ways to craft songs that are universal no matter the subject matter. The madman has managed to lap this feat and do it all over again with Aaron West. While little is known about the future of West, the listener, without a doubt, is rooting for him. He may be a fictional character, but West is as real as you and I: flawed to all hell, but is trying his best. 

Brandon Cortez is a writer/musician residing in El Paso, Texas, with his girlfriend and two cats. When not playing in shitty local emo bands, you can find him grinding Elden Ring on his second cup of cold brew. Find him on Twitter @numetalrev.

Polkadot – …to be crushed | Album Review

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Count Your Lucky Stars

New Year's Eve is always a bittersweet moment for me. I don’t like the dreariness of winter much, and I find the parties fairly boring – instead, I usually spend the lead-up to the special day trapped in that weird mid-holiday liminal slump. More specifically, these past few years, I have spent that time leading up to New Year's Eve just sitting in my car, often in a parking lot with the music low, contemplating how my year went, probably against my best interests. Did I change? Did anyone change? Did something change? Should I change for the new year? 

Polkadot’s sophomore album, …to be crushed, asks the same questions and, despite releasing on the precipice of summer, already feels like it's destined to soundtrack that liminal time on the precipice of a new year. Using precise melodies and sharp motifs, each song operates with certainty against looming unpredictability, seemingly invigorated by the challenge to one day move comfortably with the passing of time. As a band largely concerned with feeling weird and trying to find the words for it, this album is full of “tweemo” hooks, fuzz, and group vocals that inch closer toward the answers through profoundly confessional lyricism.

 …to be crushed starts on “Left Behind” with just the haunting presence of guitarist/vocalist Daney Espiritu’s words and the distant pluck of a guitar. Espiritu welcomes the listener into the hazy world of the album and lets the rest slowly sharpen into focus. Lyrics about loneliness and self-worth weave together as they are joined by different members of the band, one by one. Together, these instruments mimic the evenness and clarity of the lyrics. It’s a stellar opener that prepares the tone of the rest of the album – contemplative, transparent, and just hopeful enough. It also introduces the collaborative aspect of the redefined band. While Polkadot originally began as Espiritu’s solo project, it has since become a full band effort, opening places to Anton Benedicto on drums, Jordan Jones on bass, and Matthew Estolano on guitar. The first song directly reflects this evolution and, over the course of two and a half minutes, dissolves the barriers around the frustrating aspects of loneliness.

What is Heaven to you? This is a mildly jarring topic Espiritu opens the second song, “New Friends,” with. It’s a vivid and contemplative suggestion that momentarily breaks the distance between musician and listener as we picture our different versions of Heaven. Espiritu describes Heaven with a specific list: karaoke in purple lights, crawling into your arms, playing cards at a bar with friends. This prompt is a scene-setting lyric that encapsulates and encloses themes of the entire album.

“New Friends” is a song that should be, no, needs to be danced to. It has a heartbeat made for grabbing your friend’s hands and jumping around together under a venue’s rotating lights. It demands to be sung along to, face to face, or toward a stage. More than that, it’s sharing sincerity with you. Between the first two tracks, it is abundantly clear that Espiritu is operating with a level of trust between listener and artist, each lyric stitched together with an uncompromising honesty. But suddenly, the contemplation fades away, and the once-danceable melody turns into a thrashy moment to scream to instead of sway to. In “New Friends,” Espiritu sings about specific moments the listener has no reference to and no insight into, but it doesn’t matter; it’s magnetic, and for a fleeting moment, it's yours too.

There is a definitive confidence in Espiritu’s voice, one that suggests that what is being said has been considered and measured, yet an air of reluctance lingers. This makes the words all the more personal. In the bass-heavy “Baby Buzzkill,” Espiritu describes the crushing weight of your own worst thoughts that draw you to stay under your covers, hiding from what might be outside. The disappointment of the lyrics are ultimately drowned out by building distortion and even louder cymbal crashes, leaving the listener with a long buzz of static, which finalizes the emotional thread of the lyrics more effectively than words could. 

The album winds through its purple light-lit and fuzzy world before ending on “This Year.” Recalling the singular feeling of the opening track, “This Year” is a song once again started with just a distant strum and clear words; however, this time, it’s engulfed by lingering and almost eerie static – like a guitar left too close to an amp by a band that just left the stage for an encore. As Espiritu’s lyrics seem to reluctantly declare that the time for being jaded is over, a guitar whines ominously from behind, threatening an entrance into the song. A drum’s thud quickly follows as the guitar begins to weave over and under the lyrics. A cacophony is incoming, and it could happen at any time… But it doesn’t. Instead, group vocals enter and soften the blow. Together, the band repeats a single lyric, “This year is coming to an end, I don’t feel any different,” which is punctuated by a repeating kick drum beat. This is a lonesome lyric to end the album on, but the chorus of voices makes it familiar. Loneliness is tangible, yes, but it isn’t singular.

Long after the distortion fades away and the final lyric is sung, New Year’s Eve will come around, and I will once again be in that parking lot, music low, wondering if I changed. Did anyone change? Did something change? Should I change for the new year? But that has to be ignored because, from Polkadot’s perspective, it doesn’t matter. What matters are the fragments of feeling, the pieces of memory, and the persistent hope for something better. Time isn’t linear; a new year is just a new year, and there is always room for more (whatever more may be).

Caro Alt’s (she/her) favorite thing in the world is probably collecting CDs. Caro is from New Orleans, Louisiana and spends her time not sorting her CD collection even though she really, really needs to.

DIIV – Frog In Boiling Water | Album Review

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Fantasy Records

I haven’t been doing well, man.

I’m having trouble looking people in the eyes, fretful they might reveal that unmistakable, embarrassing thread of desperation. Every morning, I wake up, and they feel sunken, like ancient craters on the moon. Immediately, they affix themselves to my distractions, working with whatever fits in the palm of my hand. Energy leaks from the pores in my skin like steam from the morning shower — I look at myself in the bathroom mirror and run my fingers numbly over the moguls of my ribcage. A roommate told me to water her Monstera every two weeks while she’s gone, and a month later, it’s still just standing there, forlorn and wilting in the corner. I told her I’d water it, I told her that. What will she think of me when she comes back? That is one raindrop in a torrent I have no protection from. The AirPods go right back in: to another video, another song, another opinion, another memory-clogging flash of synthetic color and sound.

I have to believe that when I agreed to write about DIIV’s fourth record, I was better. That was late February, maybe? Perhaps it’s fitting to soundtrack a routine bout of depression with such overwhelmingly dour music, but the downside is that the murky beauty underneath it refuses to resonate with me. That’s what happens when you live in a negative copy of your present — that, and the pull of homeostasis. A pool of icy water feels fine if you’re just as cold when you enter it.

I don’t know if we’ve ever heard the Brooklyn-based indie stalwarts sound as comprehensively solemn as they sound on their latest record. It’s not surprising. This is the trajectory the band has charted since their 2012 debut Oshin, which saw Zachary Cole Smith and company riding the post-Beach Fossils jangle revival all the way to Peter Parker’s dorm room. Years later, burnout and heroin addiction informed the fragile, misunderstood Is The Is Are, but it still produced a handful of singles in conversation with (or, more likely, in an obligation to) Oshin’s festival-bound buoyancy. Opiate addiction, for many people, is a point of no return, and regardless of whether or not you manage to stabilize, the phantom ache of electrochemistry haunts every good day thereafter, forever in danger of sinking the ship. And yet even 2019’s Deceiver, the start of Smith’s newly sober reality, sneaks in an uplifting turn of melody or two.

In comparison, the water boiling the titular frog is fathoms deep, deep enough to stop light in its tracks. Rhythmically, the pace is sluggish; sonically, the colors run inky and polluted. Much of the inspiration comes from genres celebrated for their sensate qualities, which the band then beats into a bruised, cohesive paste. Lead single “Brown Paper Bag” is classic shoegaze with a clear MBV callback near the end and a visualizer whose downcast one-shot makes for a cheeky double metaphor. “Everyone Out” cribs the jugular thump and plucked harmonics of Sonic Youth’s “Shadow of a Doubt” but not its eroticism; instead, the band can only manage the gray line between optimism and cynicism, and that is about as chipper as they get here.

DIIV has a knack for delivering penultimate album tracks, and “Soul-net,” a song ostensibly about social media, hits hard here. On paper, Smith’s words seem to arrive at an epiphany. “I’m not afraid / I love my pain / I know we can leave this prison,” he offers as a protective mantra. The music says otherwise. There’s real dread pulsing through the song’s twin guitar lines and rotten kick drum, and instead of building toward catharsis, the minor key only clenches tighter, squeezing the life out of his voice. It’s not a clean split, not even close; it’s the familiar grip of addiction in all its forms.

Bandleader Zachary Cole Smith, having long ditched his blonde swoop and beanie for a short brown shag and boxy glasses, inhabits the role of a doomsayer on a street corner, muttering soft curses and hoarse self-lacerations underneath the roar of the band. It’s hard to hear a man pushing forty sounding so existentially crushed. “Remember they told us / the tide lifts our boats up / That ocean is dried out,” he moans on opener “In Amber,” perhaps indirectly recalling the band’s earliest and more innocent effort. The grand theme here is “cultural collapse,” as outlined in Daniel Quinn’s 1996 novel The Story of B, from which the LP gets its name. “If you place [a frog] gently in a pot of tepid water and turn the heat on low,” they explain, “before long, with a smile on its face, it will unresistingly allow itself to be boiled to death.”

Smith alludes constantly to the ingredients of the soup: the threat of war, the raging cultural one, the pleasure suck of the internet, and the ongoing climate emergency, all of which make, in Quinn’s words, “customs and institutions fall into disuse and disrespect, especially among the young, who see that even their elders can no longer make sense of them.” You might get a glimmer of some focus, maybe in the mordant title track or the angsty “Somber the Drums,” but Smith’s lyrics are largely content to soak in the feeling of comfortable misery rather than specify what’s causing it. They circle the drain rather than the point, which is probably a good thing; the abstraction pairs well with the thick murk of the music, which feels more authentic and more succinct than anything Smith might explicate.

Some still believe the notion that our music ought to reflect the times, and they would be satisfied by the nebulous devastation swirling throughout Frog in Boiling Water. However, I question how effective that archaic approach can continue to be. We can be galvanized by music, enough to write about it. For the overwhelming rest of us, it’s part of the thing, not the whole thing. It tells us who we are and how we relate to everybody else; it gets us through long plane trips and treadmill sessions; it backgrounds our trips to the grocery store, the barbershop, and the local tavern. It’s there when we’re high and when we’re low, when we’re feeling everything and nothing at all, an unerring current running parallel to the anfractuousness of our lives. It is every sound at once, and it never stops, not even for a second.

It’s just another album. What feels more radical is absolute silence, the needle reaching the inner groove, the cease of the thrum that finally reveals how far we’ve grown from each other, how hot the water has become. But then, who can bear to feel the burn? And thus, we are cursed. The AirPods go right back in.

Rob Moura is from Seattle. He covers local music as the editor for WASH Magazine and writes for The Stranger, Earshot Jazz, and ARCADE, among others. Say hi to him on Instagram and/or follow his Substack. He also plays quiet acoustic folk as Armour; he’d love it if you gave his new album a spin.

Pardoner, Nick Normal, Guitar, Shoplifter, Cherry Venom | Concert Review

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How does one find themselves at the White Eagle Polish Hall – a mid-size event space for weddings and semi-pro wrestling – in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, at 7 pm on a Thursday night? If that’s where SF punk stalwarts Pardoner are playing, that’s how! Pardoner kicked off their west coast tour with lo-fi shoegaze act Guitar and egg punk weirdo Nick Normal (both from PDX) in Vic on May 9th. Add on support from a couple of local bands – the up-and-coming Shoplifter and first-timers Cherry Venom – and you have a killer bill.

Victoria is a midsize city with an outsized music scene, and the locals’ craving for exhilarating live music is insatiable. But Victoria is also out of the way and seagirt, only accessible for touring bands by ferry, so Thursday night’s show did not come easy. It is thanks to Shoplifter’s Curtis Lockhart and his confidantes Cam and Amber that Pardoner and crew even made it here. The night embodied a real DIY ethos and made me proud of the Victoria music community.

Shoplifter

Opener Cherry Venom made their debut, a humble three-song set channeling the spirit of Kim Deal and Tanya Donelly. Miraculously, the band was immune to first-gig jitters and held a steady tempo, letting the melodic rhythms, roaring guitar, and stabbing bass have their space while the eponymous Cherry’s vocals teemed with righteous indignation. Setting the stage for Pardoner is a tall order for a first show, but they were up to the task.

Shoplifter is the aforementioned Curtis and Cam, joined by the inimitable Matt E on bass, who was pulling double duty with Cherry Venom. Evolving out of their pre-pandemic project Numbing, Shoplifter hypnotizes with drop D riffs that marry post-rock balladry with post-punk drive. Imagine if New Order and Unwound had a child who listens to a lot of Hotline TNT. Curtis’ understated demeanor couldn’t overshadow his enthusiasm – to be playing this gig, to be opening for Pardoner, to see the audience of friends and strangers who showed up for the endeavor. “This was a really hard show to put on...I’m a mess,” he said, sweat beading on his forehead. A subtle smile revealed his feeling of triumph as the band blasted into their final tune.

Middle acts Guitar and Nick Normal are a bonded pair—they share members and equipment, swapping band leaders and instruments between sets. Playing in a thousand different bands is a core part of being in a local scene, and this hodgepodge arrangement gave us Victorians a glimpse into the kindred Portland scene a few hundred miles down the coast.

Guitar

I was most curious to see Guitar live – they’re the solo project of Saia Kuli, and their recent release Casting Spells On Turtlehead garnered buzz for its unique contribution to the shoegaze boom. How would he recreate that brand of noisy, highly composed, layered bedroom recordings live? Against all expectations, Kuli opts for a kind of anti-Strokes approach, taking over lead vocals while his band cranks away. The songs translate well – two guitarists meander and mingle with heavy chorus pedal riffs, extended intertwining lines of discordant guitarmonies that sound like a discombobulated Polvo. Kuli’s low-register vox give off Protomartyr vibes, and his presence as band leader is lowkey; so lowkey, in fact, that he even left the stage a few times to let the volume swell so the jams could have their space. At first, Kuli’s deep voice and mellow vibes sounded sarcastic and disinterested – “You could be anywhere else in the world tonight, but you’re here,” he intoned – but by the set’s end, his gratitude to the crowd and the openers felt genuine.

After a short break and a band member shuffle, Guitar’s guitarist is suddenly playing drums and singing – he's the eponymous Nick Normal – and now Saia is playing lead guitar. From the heavier drone of the previous acts, Normal’s band shifts into a higher gear with tunes that want to scratch your face off – Devo-inspired egg punk, straight hardcore rippers, skronky Andy Gill-style guitar over melodic post-punk bass lines, a bit of synthy weirdness sprinkled in. Mr. Normal on drums is an arresting presence, a real drummer’s drummer with virtuosic timing and panache that steals the scene. It took me maybe 90 seconds after his set ended to snag his soon-to-be-released tape.

NICK NORMAL

Then came the main event. Pardoner’s demeanor, guitar tone, and vocal stylings all scream “SLACKER!” But like any slacker rock band worth their salt, they undermine the moniker with a high-effort and tight-knit performance. Max and Trey trade solos and Thin Lizzy harmonies as they swell from distorted jangle to hardcore ferocity. Both sets of vox are true to the records with a tuneful, tongue-in-cheek nonchalance. The crowd was ramped up and grooving (the partition between drinking and non-drinking sections long since disregarded), and the improbable night of music came to a roaring, exalted climax. While a good share of Pardoner’s tunes are about the dispiriting state of the contemporary indie scene (their newest single is a jaded screed on the “Future of Music”), you could tell they were giving their all—an inspiring, infectious performance.

My only complaint, and the restless crowd clearly agreed with me, is that Pardoner's set was way too short. 20 minutes and done! We were shouting tracks by name (I would’ve loved “When She’s Next To Me”); though clearly tempted to play a few more, they dutifully packed their pedals and cables without another note. It was 10:05 pm in a residential neighborhood, so maybe there was a curfew? But it doesn’t help Victoria’s musical inferiority complex to feel cheated out of a fuller set from one of the coolest bands to venture out here.

That minor grievance aside, it was a hell of a night, and I left the show with my cup full – local bands and touring bands putting on amazing, diverse, original sets with the coolest guitar sounds imaginable and a heart-pumping energy.

Pardoner

What’s the takeaway? Touring bands: give the smaller towns a chance! For an extra stop on your tour, you’ll sell a few more tapes and shirts (and come home with a few more Canadian bills than you expected), maybe crash on one extra floor – but you’ll be doing an act of musical outreach to an underserved community of fans. And local fans: shoot your shot! Message that touring band on IG, hit up your local Polish hall or bowling alley about putting on a show, and cross your fingers. I grant that the economics of touring and throwing shows is tight (I hear the White Eagle Polish Hall charges an arm and a leg), and quite frankly, I’m not sure that Curtis broke even in his investment, but if your town has a good music scene and good vibes, it’s very much an “if you build it, they will come” situation. Invest in your local scene, and it will invest in you.

Matt Watton (@brotinus) is an inveterate music fan and erstwhile academic. An American ex-pat currently living on Canada’s West Coast, you can find him listening to tunes, writing about albums, or making a racket in Slugger. Other passions include baseball and shawarma.

Amen Dunes – Death Jokes | Album Review

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Sub Pop Records

Let’s get this out of the way: Freedom from Amen Dunes is a real IYKYK album. One for the heads, if you will. The record was critically acclaimed upon release, yet it felt as though I never really heard people talking about it. I'd see a post here and there online, but other than that, I was left to enjoy it in relative solitude. 

Freedom is a freewheeling exploration of what rock n roll is and what rock n roll does, pulling from past sounds and textures, then peeling back the skin to show what’s underneath it all. Everything Amen Dunes does on Freedom can be summed up on “Blue Rose” as Damon McMahon sings, “We play religious music, don’t think you’d understand, man.” 

The music that Amen Dunes makes is indeed religious, as it seeks to blend elements of some sacred plane with the beauty and nastiness of our mortal world. McMahon does this through a raga-like vocal approach, bringing a droning quality to how he forces out syllables. For me, it’s this way of singing that transfixed me on my first listen six years ago because it felt so strange. There was something seemingly so familiar about his voice yet also so foreign at the same time, almost like a more visceral David Gray. I’ve been trying to put my finger on what McMahon’s sound reminds me of, but whenever I think I’ve found the answer, it escapes my grasp, and I think it’s this constant chase that’s been drawing me back to Freedom time and time again without growing bored.

For the last few years, I’ve been eagerly waiting for when Amen Dunes would return with new music. I absolutely needed to know what the next move would be. How would McMahon follow up an album that had such an immediate and lasting impact on my life? 

McMahon briefly tipped his hand in 2021 after signing with Sub Pop when he released “Feel Nothing,” a trippy dance track that sounds like it could fit on Freedom while also pointing toward a new direction. While I loved the song, I was unsure what it meant for Amen Dunes due to its status as a loosie. Would they stay in the lane that Freedom created, or would they journey into uncharted waters? Both options are exciting but also come with certain anxieties as a fan. By continuing to explore the same sounds, I would get to keep enjoying what made me first fall in love with their music, but with the risk that it begins to feel stale. However, if they take a sharp left turn, I might love the new music, but I also run the risk of becoming disconnected from the artist. 

Damon McMahon chose the second option, and it was well worth the risk. Amen Dunes's new album, Death Jokes, is a chaotic and thrilling record that not only marks a new chapter in the artist's career but is an album that only McMahon could make. Gone are the bright and grandiose guitar anthems, and in come a collection of songs built from samples, drum machines, and glitches. Interwoven amongst all the frenzy and noise are mantras that push back against the malaise that many of us feel toward society’s fraying fabric. 

On the ethereal jam, “Exodus,” McMahon remarks, “You say life is hard. Well, at least you think it is. But it’s a joke. Some day we lose it. So use it.” He’s hanging on every syllable, pleading that we emerge from this prolonged brain fog to see what’s in front of us and embrace the present. 

This idea of embracing life is central to the album’s spirit as McMahon meditates on the importance of existence, concluding that, yes, it means everything, and also, no, it means nothing at all. After mentioning someone’s passing on “Boys,” McMahon challenges his audience, saying, “Do you really want it? Oh, you always said you would.” It’s as if he’s saying, ‘You’ve seen how quickly it can all go away, so why aren’t you willing to cherish the only thing you truly have?’

His challenge is present in the music itself, resembling the information overload of our endless scrolling. Between the samples, the beats, and McMahon's elongated vocal approach, I found Death Jokes to almost be impenetrable on my first listen. Amongst the sonic maelstrom, I had to cling to fleeting phrases in order to make some sense of it all. With each listen, I found new moments to latch on to, and slowly, I was rewarded for my presence. In the end, I'm thankful that McMahon has gone in this uncharted direction because he has taught me that to truly appreciate a person's art is to ride the wave where it takes you. 

Connor is an English professor in the Bay Area, where he lives with his partner and their cat and dog, Toni and Hachi. When he isn’t listening to music or writing about killer riffs, Connor is reading fiction and obsessing over sports.