Aaron West and The Roaring Twenties Announce New Album, In Lieu of Flowers

Today, Buffalo group Aaron West and The Roaring Twenties have announced their long-awaited third album, nearly fives years after their last LP, Routine Maintenance. In Lieu of Flowers is set to arrive on April 12 via Hopeless Records.

The project is both a band and a story conceived by Dan Campbell, the Philadelphia singer/songwriter who is best known for his his work as the lead vocalist of The Wonder Years. He debuted the project in the summer of 2014, when the band released their debut album We Don’t Have Each Other. Campbell has maintained a continuous story over the last nine years, displaying how Aaron’s grief is not a product of the divorce we are thrown into at the beginning of that first record, but a cumulative mirage of grief stemming from the death of his father some years prior.

On stage, Campbell embodies Aaron and speaks from a fictional perspective, committing fully to the craft and going as far as to always be donning some type of Buffalo Bills attire. Across two albums and an EP thus far, the story of Aaron West is far from over, and Campbell’s anticipated return to the project in 2024 makes it set to be one of the most exciting and interesting releases of the year thus far. And, with a 16-piece band in tow, In Lieu of Flowers will no doubt be one of Campbell’s greatest musical feats yet.

“What makes the storytelling come alive is the buy-in,” Campbell explains about the album, comparing the project to pro-wrestling. “There’s this arena full of people and they know that person in the ring isn’t an undead zombie mortician. It’s a guy, his name is Mark, but they buy into it because that mass suspension of disbelief is where the magic is.”

To correspond with the In Lieu of Flowers announcement, Aaron West and the Roaring Twenties have unveiled the title track as the first single. They’ve also announced a special album release show happening April 11 in Asbury Park, NJ that will be live-streamed. More info on everything can be found here.

Listen to “In Lieu of Flowers” below.

In Lieu of Flowers Artwork:

In Lieu of Flowers Tracklist:
Smoking Rooms
Roman Candles
Paying Bills at the End of the World
Monogahela Park
Alone at St. Luke’s
Whiplash
Spitting in the Wind
I’m an Albatross
Runnin’ Out of Excuses
In Lieu of Flowers
Dead Leaves