Old 97's: Too Far To Care

Lots of people are trying their hand at country music these days, and some of them are pretty good. But Old 97's is on top of the neo-twang heap, not because it's the most genuine, or because it's paid the most dues, or any such standard line. Unlike modern Nashville artists—and even most of the "insurgent" country bands to whom the whole scene is a campy, tongue-in-cheek gag—this Dallas quartet understands the intangibles behind country as a musical style. Simply put, the band has enormous respect for the music. It shows all the way through the excellent Too Far To Care: in the resigned loneliness of "Streets Of Where I'm From"; in the bitterness of "Big Brown Eyes," a classic country-song-about-country-songs; and in the alcoholic self-pity of "Barrier Reef," perhaps the best drunken pickup line since George Jones' "(Yabba Dabba Doo) The King Is Gone (And So Are You)." These are guys whose simple reverence for the genre lets them write amazing stuff, which they themselves may or may not call country music. But it is, and it's great.