New West Records
2008
Blame It On Gravity
About This Album
After issuing several albums of rural, ramshackle twang, the Old 97's hit their stride with 1997's Too Far To Care, a record that fused pop flourishes with roadhouse country flavor. That fusion never quite left, but it became tempered over the years -- tempered by the band's hasty exit from Elektra Records in 2001, by Rhett Miller's subsequent solo career, and by the onset of fatherhood and middle age. Refreshingly, the Old 97's returned to that sonic sweet spot with Blame It on Gravity, a mature record that boasts the same combination that made Too Far to Care an ideal pop album for people in cowboy boots (or the perfect country album for those who'd never heard of Lyle Lovett and Gram Parsons). The album's timing was impeccable, arriving during the same spring that saw the final issue of No Depression Magazine -- which, incidentially, featured a story on the band -- as well as a nostalgic, reissued edition of Whiskeytown's Stranger's Almanac. Both were bittersweet reminders that alt country's golden days had faded into twilight, making the Old 97's all the more commendable for weathering the industry's changing tastes.

Blame It On Gravity owes much of its strength to Rhett Miller, an able-voiced frontman whose lyrics brim with internal rhymes and character sketches.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9)

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