Popcorn Zombies

Graham Craycraft Steve Earle’s 2020 album, Ghosts of West Virginia , is largely based around the mining communities of West Virginia and the conditions and lives of the miners there-of. Steve Earle has often been extremely political during his concerts including the sporting of the Soviet Union hammer and sickle emblem on apparel and equipment. Despite the brash political commentary during his shows, his albums have almost always been tasteful and subtle. This album is no different. It traverses subjects such as lost time, death, struggles of the miners, and learning to get by. It is thought provoking without being preachy or pedantic. It tells the stories for how they are without overarching bias. Songs in this album are more connected than other albums because of the consistent subject matter. Lines like “it can only get better/ it’s just a matter of time,” in one song plays, tragically, well with lines like “time is never on our side.” A sense of consistent hope that will n...

By Michael Momper If you are in need of some fulfilling reflection and honest soul-searching to listen to during quarantine, look no further than American Aquarium's latest album, Lamentations. This is a band whose upward trajectory is one unlike any I've seen in a long time. Singer and songwriter BJ Barham has long shown extraordinary potential as an honest craftsman of rootsy country-rock, but not until 2018's Things Change did this band deliver an almost seamlessly excellent album top-to-bottom. Don't get me wrong, there have been plenty of other great bright spots on past albums; Wolves and Burn, Flicker, Die are what really pulled me in years ago, with wonderfully honest storytelling and reflections on the white-knuckle struggles of rural America. But with Things Change I really began to see the maturity of BJ's craft. It is an album full of empathy but also urgency, and contains very thought-provoking reflections on hard work and the American drea...