Don't miss Robert Christgau's review of Blame It On Gravity on today's All Things Considered, on your local NPR station. The short recap: "They've just put out their best album in seven years. Blame It On Gravity is noticeably more taut and focused than their earlier albums — more delicate, too." It was Christgau, the "Dean of American Rock Critics," who wrote those great liner notes for the guys' 2006 best-of comp, Hit By A Train: The Best of Old 97's, and if those notes, in their looking back, reflected his uncertainty on the future of the band, today's review does not.
I had the chance to visit with him backstage at a 97's show in NYC a few years ago, and was pleasantly surprised at how friendly and what a nice conversationalist he was, especially for someone who had the rep of being a bit aloof during his decades at the the Village Voice.
Anyhow, a nice review if a bit odd that it comes nearly three months to the day since BIOG's release. OTOH, based on the what I gather is a record number of sellouts on this tour, I'm thinking this album has legs.
frank