Columbia City Paper

Whatever you need in an alt country band, Raleigh’s American Aquarium has it: greasy licks; a deep well of lyrics; solid hooks; a sound that’s both gritty and rich at once; songs about booze and loss and the occasional bar tramp; packed out, beer-soaked live shows; four solid albums to pull from; you name it. What more could a music fan possibly ask for?

The band’s latest album Small Town Hymns is destined to be an underground classic. Rumored to have been written and recorded in just around a month’s time, it supplants the fuller barroom grooves of Dances for the Lonely and The Bible and the Bottle, with a darker, stripped down introspection more rooted in storytelling. Don’t get me wrong, it rocks, but it’s definitely a coming of age album –the morning-after soul searching that follows a night that got out of hand.

This will be a fun, hard-drinking show. New Brookland Tavern at it’s best.

Ponderosa opens. Doors at 8 p.m.

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