Old 97's - Wreck Your Life

Deluxe 180-gram vinyl reissue

First time on wax as a standalone release!

Album download included, offer subject to expiration

This one'll set your hair on fire. True punk mettle fearlessly cross-bred with deep country soul. The Bloodshot debut album, recorded in the attic of a house in the nascent hipster Ground Zero neighborhood Wicker Park by the favorite sons of Dallas is chock full of blinding stutter guitar, soaring vocal harmonies, and keen songwriting. Find out how it all started. It was also the band's first (sort of) hit record.

Features cameos by Jon Langford (on his tune "Over the Cliff") and yodeling legend Don Walser ("Old Familiar Steam.") Twelve hard-charging Texas now-classics including "Victoria Lee" and "Big Brown Eyes" as well as blistering covers of Bill Monroe (the bluegrass meets drag strip race version of "My Sweet Blue-Eyed Darlin'") and the Disney chestnut by the Three Caballeros "You Belong To My Heart."

Wreck Your Life documents a band hitting its stride, the confidence growing as quickly as the crowds, and it holds up beautifully. Forebears like the Everlys and Simon and Garfunkel shine even brighter now, alongside the more energetic, obvious influences that drew a line from the House of Cash to the alley behind legendary Chicago punk club Lounge Ax.

Roots-Rock scares come and go, but the kind of energy, lyrical talent and inventive alchemical acumen that Wreck Your Life has in spades never falls from favor. The 97s were on their way.

 

Side 1

Victoria

Other Shoe

Doreen

You Belong To My Heart

Big Brown Eyes

Dressing Room Walls

Side 2

W-I-F-E

Bel Air

My Sweet Blue-Eyed Darlin’

Old Familiar Steam

Over the Cliff

Goin’ Goin’ Gone

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