Sex in Wartime Is Sweeter than Peace

A couple weeks ago, I was watching one of the better hours on television this year, the Veronica Mars episode where Duncan rides off into the sunset. Near the end of the episode when Veronica walked along the ocean reminiscing about the boyfriend she would never see again (or so they would have us believe), they played one of the best songs I’ve heard in a long time. It turned out the song was Adelaide by Old 97’s who also contributed the bar brawling Four Leaf Clover in the same episode. I ended up downloading both songs with the former getting massive play on my iPod.

Now the lead singer of Old 97’s, Rhett Miller (the band’s on hiatus), is back with his second solo album, The Believer (well technically third but Mythologies is pretty obscure unless you want to drop $249 on Amazon). With the south of the border rock sound, I immediately thought of one of my favorite bands from college, the Refreshments, but without the quirky lyric. Miller does get in some good one-liners such as, “Sex in wartime is sweeter then peace, yeah it’s the one sweet thing about war.” (My Valentine) Also with his alt-country pop, Ryan Adams circa Jacksonville City Nights is another easy comparison. And fresh off his work with Kanye West, Jon Brion leave his mark playing multiple instruments throughout the album.

The closest song that comes close to brilliance of Adelaide is the duet with Rachael Yamagata on Fireflies where a couple looking back on a failed relationship hoping they make it work again. The album caps off with two other powerful songs including the Elliot Smith inspired title track and does a goof job capturing the late singer. That is followed by the solemn acoustic Question that makes a decent lullaby to end the album with lines, “Someday somebody’s gonna ask you a question that you should say yes to once in your life, maybe tonight I got a question for you” which would make for a proposal someday.

Song to Download - Fireflies (Don’t forget to pick up Adelaide too)

The Believer gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.