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This is the first Old 97's I've heard since they were in the first rank of the Alt.Country Movement back in the mid-Nineties, and it is better than anything I've heard by them. Eleven songs that clock a total of 42 minutes, the length of a vinyl LP in the days of old, this is high octane stuff to fuel your own personal propulsion system! Guitarist Ken Bethea rocks fantastically throughout.
The first song, "I Don't Wanna Die In This Town," would be blasting out of radios everywhere in a better world. "Bad Luck Charm" features the pedal steel guitar of Fats Kaplin, as does "Good With God," where Rhett Miller is joined by Brandi Carlisle as God. "Irish Whiskey Pretty Girls" has Fats Kaplin on fiddle, and I would swear there's a banjo too, but it's not in the credits. "Nobody" is surf music with a Western feel and theremin. The wittiest lyric has got to be "Jesus Loves You" -- "Jesus loves you more than I do, just because he doesn't know you, not like I do." "She Hates Everybody" is right up there too. All the lyrics are included in the insert.
UPDATE -- Hopefully I can catch the band when they hit ATL on tour this spring! (Spring 2018)
