American Aquarium is one of those bands I’ll never stop rooting for—which I’ll probably be doing for a long time, because above all else, American Aquarium is about perseverance.

BJ Barham’s group—and make no mistake, he’s the singer, songwriter, and only constant member, not to mention the guy who writes the notes they tuck in with every CD they mail out—has traveled a long and eventful road to arrive at this, their 11th studio album. There was the time they almost threw in the towel after half a decade of slugging it out in bars and clubs, right before Jason Isbell volunteered himself to produce their next album (2012’s Burn.Flicker.Die.) and launched them into phase two.

There was the time at the end of phase two when Barham dissolved the then-current lineup and rebuilt the band from scratch. Still more players have rotated in and out since, resolving to the current lineup of Barham (lead vocals, acoustic guitar), Shane Boeker (electric guitar, background vocals), Neil Jones (pedal steel), Ryan Van Fleet (drums), Alden Hedges (bass, background vocals), and Hank Long (keys, background vocals).

And then there’s the 2020s, which have seen this musically ambitious outfit—part Stones-ey bar band, part Drive-By Truckers Southern gothic, part Springsteen/Petty classic rockers—deliver one powerhouse album after another. I loved Lamentations (2020), adored Chicamacomico (2022), and celebrated The Fear Of Standing Still (2024); they’re three of the finest albums I’ve heard across my last six years of music listening.

New Ways To Lose is better than all of them.

This album—yep, guess I’m just gonna say it—feels like a stone classic.

To the extent that’s true, it’s so because Barham and company never try too hard to make these songs more than what they are: simple, direct, artful, tragic, and yet still hopeful for a better tomorrow. Opener “Dollar General” exemplifies this; it’s a melodic tune with a lot of piano, an interesting bridge and guitar solo, and unexpected chord changes, but that’s all subtle window dressing for an allegory about a store standing in, or standing for, an entire small town. “Even the Dollar General is closing down,” sings Barham, and really, how much harder could hard times get? “Can’t put concrete in a casket,” he sings later, “If you could, they’d bury this town.”

There’s no flash, no overblown crescendos… just a strong arrangement and pure devastation.

Batting second, “Can’t Into Could” is a chunky, rather Petty-esque rocker that features the album’s fatalistic title in its first verse, yet turns toward hope and resilience in the end. “Wanna watch me do something, tell me I can't” sings Barham, a hint of drawl underscoring this stereotypically Southern stubborn streak; it’s a rough and ready anthem to sheer persistence.

The next trio of tunes sealed the deal for me. “4x60” is a golden-hued fragment of memory captured in song, Barham and his little brother riding in the backseat, “Four windows down, sixty miles an hour” with the radio up high, not knowing where you were going, but getting there fast. Barham has cited Bruce Springsteen as an influence, and it’s often easy to hear it, but never easier than on “Twin Flames,” which could have been an outtake from Darkness On The Edge Of Town; it’s an epic song of love and devotion that’s capped off with a sax solo. And then we get to “Out There In The Dark,” an absolutely gorgeous piano-and-steel-led celebration of the life-saving qualities of art-making, a beacon calling out to all the other artists, saying “A song is just a reminder / You ain’t the only one in the dark.”

Thumping rocker “History Repeats Itself” describes how money men come into town, build something quickly and cheaply, and then walk away before it all falls down. The heart of the song, though, is the heart of the album: “I refuse to sit back idly,” sings Barham, and that refusal echoes through every song here. This is an album about stubbornly refusing to give in to whatever you’re up against: hard times, despair, cynicism, you name it. It’s an album about perseverance in the face of adversity.

Built around ringing piano chords and vaguely martial drums, “Favorite Hello” is a beautiful, playful celebration of and elegy for the family dog: “You were the goodest boy a man could ever ask for / My favorite hello was my hardest goodbye.” The contrasting “Whatever Helps You Sleep At Night” is a dark, angry rocker with more hints of Petty and this timely line: “These days it’s hard to see the difference / Between what is wrong and what is right.”

Barham’s songwriting craft shines once again on “Just Like You,” a stunning piece of work in which he sings to his young daughter about how much she reminds him of his departed mother, and vice versa (“I wish she could get to know more than just your name”). Its upbeat yet melancholy arrangement features acoustic, Hammond organ, and steel guitar, even as its heartfelt generational dialogue suggests another theme: this is an album that tallies up losses while still looking to the future. It’s about that place in the middle of your life where the distance forward and the distance backwards start to feel like they might be about the same, which makes you consider each a little more closely.

“I got pretty good at picking up bad habits. I just never figured quite how to put them down” sings Barham in the chorus of mid-tempo closer “Bad Habits.” Over a bed of steel guitar, his drawl comes out a little more, evidence that on this tune that he’s a good ol’ boy confessing his sins before reminding himself—and you—that “Sometimes the only way out is through.”

New Ways To Lose was produced by Shooter Jennings, who draws out and captures inspired performances from everyone without ever getting in the way. Every tune here sounds as real as the words Barham sings, and that’s saying something indeed; the man is an artist, a poet, and a storyteller, and these ten tracks stand among his most resonant and meaningful work yet.

Rating: A

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