Rhett Miller: Rhett Miller

“I’ll take a beating, and you’ll take a bath,” he complains on lead track “Nobody Says I Love You Anymore,” while the heroine in “Caroline” has a “hot blood heart made of stone.” “Take my hand darling / Don’t squeeze my fingers so hard / We’re off to a curious start,” he wryly observes in this rather confusing song of longing and self-castigation that eloquently restates the famous Pogo quote: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” This is a stance Miller has long occupied over the arc of his career—despite his stunning good looks, model wife and one-time scholarship to Sarah Lawrence. While it might be an uncomfortable state of mind for the musician, it makes for some compelling tunes here.