Rhett Miller occasionally watches the clock when he’s onstage. That’s just one of the revelations he makes on “Longer Than You’ve been Alive”, the opening track from the Old 97's’ ninth album, Most Messed Up. He also fesses up to washing down “mountains of weed, a handful of pills” with “oceans and oceans” of booze. “None the hard stuff, that shit kills.” He jumps off risers he shouldn’t even attempt to climb at his age, bickers with the other guys in the band like they’re old married couples, and still sometimes dreams of being the kind of rock star that simply can’t exist in today’s industry. “Rock stars were once such mythical creatures, up there with presidents, Playmates, and preachers,” he explains. “Now you just do it cause it’s what you do.” When Miller sings, “I’m not crazy about songs that get self-referential,” the universe threatens to collapse in on itself.
Most Messed Up puts the "old" in Old 97's' bandname. The guys are all now in their 40s, alt-country survivors who have the gumption to admit they can’t keep singing about romantic vindictiveness when they’re all married with kids. Bad backs and disillusioned fans are one thing, but finding happiness can be disastrous for a band like this. So Miller tries to spice up his songwriting the way spouses try to spice up their marriages, addressing the difficulties of maintaining a spark with your bandmates as well as your mate. “Let’s Get Drunk and Get It On” opens with him propositioning a woman post-show with a bottle of booze, but it ends with him booking a room with a bottle of chilled champagne so he and the missus can have some time away from the kids.
Self-aware and self-deprecating, Most Messed Up seems like the kind of album that signals a comeback, and certainly the band rumble through these songs like they’re not tired of each other. Songs like “Give It Time” and “Wheels Off” sound like the Olds at their rowdiest, but they can’t really sustain that sense of abandon over a dozen tracks. “This Is the Ballad” and “The Disconnect” are far too fussy and clever from a guy who claims to hate self-referential songs, and “Guadalajara” sounds utterly embarrassed as it recounts the tale of a businessman tempted by a woman losing her bikini top. And the title track closes the album with the least persuasive line Miller may have ever penned: “I am the most messed up motherfucker in this town.” Does anyone, even Miller himself, actually buy that?
But the Olds were never a songwriter project. As distinctive as his lyrical voice can be, Miller is still blessed beyond measure to have these three guys backing him. Ken Bethea still plays like he still thinks you can surf in Texas, blending the Ventures and the Sir Douglas Quintet into super-melodic, super-concise guitar lines, and the rhythm section of drummer Philip Peeples and bassist Murry Hammond still swing just enough to give these songs some aggression. Sure, the twitchy alienation of their earliest records is long gone, but the Old 97's are still fighting the good fight against respectability.
