A triumphant kind of melancholy colors ‘In Lieu Of Flowers,’ the upcoming album from Aaron West and The Roaring Twenties, as if somewhere beyond our main character’s suffering lies his happy ending. The project is a work of narrative fiction by primary songwriter and mastermind Dan Campbell (The Wonder Years). Every gig and every person in every room has an effect on where the story could go next.
On their new song ‘Whiplash’, out today, Aaron is hiding his drinking again, buried underneath the weight of his decisions in the months after finishing the band’s UK tour by himself – an arc captured on the band’s most recent single, ‘Alone at St. Luke’s’.
Co-written by runner.’s Noah Henry Weinman, ‘Whiplash’ is the album’s eye of the storm – a somber moment that sets up the chain of events to follow. It’s masterfully executed with pedal steel and a heartbreaking falsetto chorus; an achy and pensive ballad that ruminates in the uncertainty of whatever comes next.