Old 97's: Drag It Up : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

In the three years since old 97's' outstanding Satellite Rides, frontman Rhett Miller put out a slick but lackluster solo album. Now he's back with his cow-punk compadres to muss things up a bit. But Drag It Up is . . . well, kind of a drag. Rather than build on the charging guitars, harmonies and Brit-rock backbeats of Satellite, the band delivers a muddle of average country rock ("Won't Be Home"), early-R.E.M.-style whine ("Smokers") and wobbly, droning sadcore ("Valium Waltz"). It takes half an album for the band to get to the sharp power pop of "The New Kid" and "Bloomington." Miller can still pull off a good caustic one-liner ("You're a bottle cap away from pushing me too far"), but there's nothing here that dazzles quite like "This is the story of Victoria Lee/She started off on Percodan and ended up with me," from 1995's Wreck Your Life.