Turning Back the Clock: The Old 97's "Too Far to Care"

With the exception of Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, I credit The Old 97's Too Far to Care for widening my musical horizons during high school, forever dissolving the near-monopoly that Dave Matthews Band held over my stereo. Yes, there was Jeff Buckley and Idlewild, Beck and Radiohead, but more than any of these artists The Old 97's seemed to capture the dreams, the fears, and the anxieties, that wound their way around my brain.

By the time I stumbled over Too Far to Care, the album was more than five years old. Culled from a stack of declined donations to the public library, The Old 97's were utterly new to me. Worthy heirs, I remember musing, to Uncle Tupelo, who spawned my first flirtation with "alt-country" (a term I abhor, by the by). The album quite nearly catches fire, as a sharp and feverish guitar riff announces the churning, restless "Timebomb." A song that never ceases to rope you in with its crisp and spirited tempo, and apt depiction of that one girl you cannot put from your thoughts, but you know deep down is plain trouble, as a time bomb and a land mine. It is sprinkled with oversimplified declarations, but fitting nonetheless, such as: "Having her on my brain's like getting hit by a train" and "I need a doctor to extract her / I got a feeling she'd get right back in again." Something about Rhett Miller's sketch of love is refreshingly adolescent. Perhaps, it is that the music, the tempo, how the cymbals crash just so, finds apt reflection in the lyrical allusion to explosions.

If "Timebomb" captures the periodic reckless slant of love, "Melt Show" bespeaks the worry and angst that can conquer even the most self-assure. Displaying a tempo similarly stripped of restraint, tensions and apprehensions, predominantly suspicions of boredom (Now you're killing time, and it's killing me), are augmented by stirring, driving guitar riffs. The chorus fascinates and leaves little uncertainty as to the misgivings: "Is this more than some old summer fling? / And this thing we have will it mean anything? / When October rolls around will you sober up and let me down? / Will you sober up and let me?" After the first line, the progression on the guitar falls in three firm chords, and does so again against a busier musical backdrop, all of which imparts the chorus and track with a hint of doom, that this summer affair will indeed pass.

Some albums flow fluid and uncomplicated from track to track, a whole hour can pass and you may not be fully aware that you have just listened to ten songs and not three. Too Far to Care has that capacity. Often times, dreamy, pop-inclined groups whose work drips heavily with a wall of musical ambience that borders on inducing sleep (i.e. Beach House) tend to have this effect, so that The Old 97's have accomplished this with by balancing the steadfast thrust of whirlwind tempo as "Timebomb" and "Melt Show" with gentler tracks like "Salome" and "Curtain Calls" is laudable.

I regret that I did not give the rest of the album as much attention as I did with "Timebomb" and "Melt Show," but favorites always come first, and perhaps it is best if you explore the album for yourself.