Consumer Guide Album

Old 97's: American Primitive [ATO, 2024]
"From the barroom floor to the bardo," Rhett Miller and his longtime alt-country mates regroup to assemble yet another album of formally unremarkable, melodically indelible songs. I confess that my sentimental favorite is "Honeypie," which I prefer even to the opener suggesting that we "dance like the world is falling down around you/Because it is," or "Magic" complaining that "these cigarettes are lazy/They'e killing me so slow." And please note that "Legs that go all the way down to the floor" and all, "The one thing she don't like/Is when I call her my old lady." A-