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Depending on how you felt about the doe-eyed glamour shot on the cover his 2001 solo debut, The Instigator, you’ll either love or hate the new Rhett Miller record. Thanks to that portrait and to his repertoire of earnest, tenderhearted love songs, Miller has wooed himself quite the female fan base. And with his new solo effort, The Believer, he’s practically become the alt-country Michael Bublé — very pleasant, but very adult contemporary. Much like The Instigator, The Believer is full of songs that play like retreads of Old 97’s tracks but suffer without the verve of the full band. In fact, both ‘Singular Girl’ and ‘Question’ are re-recordings of Old 97’s songs from 2001’s Satellite Rides (though at least ‘Singular” was a bonus disc rarity). Miller even resurrects a lyrical snippet from Instigator in ‘Fireflies’, an unbearably languid duet with Rachael Yamagata. Sure, at times his wit wins you over — you have to smile at a line like “talking to you, girl, is like long division”— but this material is, at best, destined for use as outro music on Gilmore Girls.
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