Staying Power.(Blame It on Gravity, Same Old Man)(Sound recording review)

The Old 97's have been occupying a valuable sliver near the border of alternative country and power pop for the better part of a decade. With their last record, "Drag It Up," in 2004, it seemed as though they might move. Dark and sometimes muted, it found the band grappling with maturity, mortality, and even its own musical future--the lead singer and principal songwriter, Rhett Miller, had recorded an excellent solo album before "Drag It Up," and he added another one just after. "Blame It on Gravity" (New West), the band's new album, represents a full resupply of its most attractive quality--its energy. "The Fool," the album's opener, charges out of the gate with Who-style power chords and a typically irresistible Miller lyric that touches on two of the record's preoccupations, cars and girls: "He came from Phoenix in a borrowed VW Bug / To be somebody or just be somebody who came from Phoenix in a borrowed VW Bug / Just to prove that he was on her like she was a drug." In Miller's songs, cleverness rarely exists for its own sake; it's a strategy for masking despair--though the despair comes through loud and clear. "No Baby I," one of the album's standouts, offers a master class in the technique, from its opening line ("The lights were low but I was lower") to its chorus ("You got them tears that fall like pearls / ...