Post BWGK Media Reviews Here

[BotheLaneFan]

Originally Posted by DJGeneral

Still waiting to see what All Music Guide has to say

Only place to bash Stand Up. AMG's reviews are usually pretty good, but their star ratings will change out of nowhere sometimes. Also, they said Busted Stuff is their best album (I agree) but have the "Critics Choice" or whatever the hell it is, by UTTAD instead. Very odd how they do their dirt at times.

[trpnbillie11]

Originally Posted by DJGeneral

Still waiting to see what All Music Guide has to say

Originally Posted by SatanZilla

Yeah, AMG always has really good objective reviews, it seems.

If you go to their site and look at the DMB discography, you'll notice they've given the album 4.5 out of 5, but there is no actual review posted.

[BotheLaneFan]

Then the review will be up tonight or tomorrow.

[BotheLaneFan]

Hmmm, I actually don't see that under Dave Matthews OR Dave Matthews Band.

[trpnbillie11]

Originally Posted by bothedmbfan

Hmmm, I actually don't see that under Dave Matthews OR Dave Matthews Band.

I have it under Dave Matthews.

[BotheLaneFan]

Odd. Maybe, for whatever reason, they take time difference into account for this? They shouldn't, but whatever.

[Bluecow2]

I searched under "Dave Matthews" disography and it showed no rating.
I then searched under "Dave Matthews Band" disography, and sure enough the 4.5 stars were there.
http://www.allmusicguide.com/cg/amg....jfpxqtgldae~T2

[Bluecow2]

here we go.

Allmusicguide.com = 4.5 of 5 stars
http://www.allmusicguide.com/cg/amg....0:dcfrxzt0ld0e
"But what makes Big Whiskey & the GrooGrux King the Dave Matthews Band's richest, and quite possibly best, album is the implicit message that all the love and loss can be felt and shared through the music, that the creation of the music itself is the reason why they're here — and that's not just a moving tribute to LeRoi Moore, it's a reason for the band to keep moving on."

[Bluecow2]

WTF. now my browser won't even open my link that I just posted for allmusicguide.com. I went to allmusic.com and there is no rating or review. How strange.

[BotheLaneFan]

I wonder if this one will get the check, or if they'll re-do the Busted Stuff review to change the end of it.

[ShotgunDMB]

Leroi has writing credits on the 1st 5 tracks..Grux through Why I Am.

Plus My Baby Blue and Seven...

[jam_fan10]

since DMB is a band like few other, its very hard to rate their albums from a critics perspective....the early complaints about their early stuff i read was that although theres good instrumentals, theres no hooks or anything to engage the listener...evenetually they realized hwat dmb were all about and changed their perspective....for instance, allmusic, if memory serves me correctly, gave both crash and BTCS a 3.5/5...apart from those 2 i would agree with their other reviews...BS 4.5; everyday 2.5; SU 2; UTTAD 4.5; BW 4.5

[Bluecow2]

Check you local paper's today as there should be reviews in Sunday sections.

[AM Son]

Originally Posted by Bluecow2

Bullz-eye.com = 4 of 5 stars
http://www.bullz-eye.com/cdreviews/g...ogrux_king.htm
"Not this time, though: Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King not only puts the brakes on the Dave Matthews Band’s creative slide, it’s perhaps their best album to date – a sweaty, loose-limbed beast of a record that vacuum seals the band’s creative spark and doesn’t lose any of its flavor..."
"whether focused by tragedy or simply back in stride, the band delivers one of the most consistently enjoyable collections of grown-up rock & roll we’re likely to hear all year. Long live the King."

No idea what this site is, but it was a very well written review, so I thought I'd share.

Of all the reviews thus far- this (IMHO) is the most well thought out and original. It offers the essence of what every other review mentions, but without resorting to too many cliches and stand-by lines.

Can't wait for Tuesday!

[sydneyDMBfan]

Time (6/8/09)

TIME'S PICKS FOR THE WEEK.

1. Album
Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King: The Dave Matthews Band's first album since the 2008 death of saxophonist Leroi Moore opens with Moore's own bleating saxophone. It's not tuneful--and neither is the album, but it has a chaotic depth of sound and feeling that makes it this grieving band's best.

[sydneyDMBfan]

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20281032,00.html

FOR ALL the immortality it imparts, rock & roll has a way of taking its practitioners before their time. Like the Who, Metallica, and many more before them, the Dave Matthews Band have faced the sudden loss of a founding member: Saxophonist LeRoi Moore died last August from injuries incurred in an ATV accident, midway through the recording of their latest album. His spirit--and his sound--looms large, however, on Big Whiskey. The GrooGrux King of the title references Moore, as does the figure at the center of Whiskey's intricate cover art (drawn by Matthews himself); his sweet, solitary sax flourishes even bookend the album.

Moore's death is also undoubtedly the reason that a group best known for its jammy, freewheeling geniality floats some uncharacteristically heavy vibes here, resulting in several jarring tonal shifts. The tense, mournful "Time Bomb," foreboding "Squirm," and dopey philosophy-lite lead single, "Funny the Way It Is," all reflect--with varying success--on the vagaries of fate, while the swamp-rocky "Alligator Pie" puzzlingly alternates grim references to Hurricane Katrina and shout-outs to one of Matthews' young daughters. When the focus turns romantic, and at times even explicitly sexual, the horn-laden "Shake Me Like a Monkey" and salacious "Seven" play rowdy yin to the tender, intimate yang of "You and Me" and "My Baby Blue." Throughout, the spectre of death rarely recedes, but life--embodied by the proto-DMB revelry of "Why I Am"--still prevails. B

DOWNLOAD THIS: "Time Bomb"

[TheTallOne]

Originally Posted by sydneyDMBfan

Time (6/8/09)

TIME'S PICKS FOR THE WEEK.

1. Album
Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King: The Dave Matthews Band's first album since the 2008 death of saxophonist Leroi Moore opens with Moore's own bleating saxophone. It's not tuneful--and neither is the album, but it has a chaotic depth of sound and feeling that makes it this grieving band's best.

People need to stop saying this is the best album. It's good, but nowhere close to being the top.

[jas230314]

none of the reviews have the balls to admit this album is great. Give it a year, and even this board will give the album an A

[sydneyDMBfan]

Dave Matthews Band plans to take on Britain

http://entertainment.timesonline.co....cle6380431.ece

Dave Matthews is a smooth operator with a well-rehearsed bloke-next-door routine. Unkempt and unshaven, he greets us at the fancy Malibu restaurant chosen for our interview and, lest we might think him the kind of guy who would come to a fancy place such as this, announces immediately that the food is pretty bad. “The best thing’s the hot dog,” he confides, reinforcing his regular-guy credentials while fatally betraying that he must be something of a regular here. This is the user-friendly persona that has helped the Dave Matthews Band (DMB) become America’s most successful touring act this century. Only the Rolling Stones have sold more than their 12m concert tickets, or topped their gross ticket earnings of $500m. As another Rolling Stone — the US rock bible — recently put it: “Summer in America means two things: it’s hot, and the Dave Matthews Band are on tour.”

This summer, Matthews and his band are taking a week out of their lucrative schedule to come here and play a big gig with Bruce Springsteen in Hyde Park, sandwiched between smaller ones in London and, er, Wolverhampton. For some years, it has puzzled Matthews, a native South African whose family briefly lived in Cambridge during his childhood, that his monumentally popular music (albums reliably enter the US chart at No1 and gigs always sell out) has so far failed to win our hearts, minds or wallets. So far, his mild ambition to “break Britain” has been stymied by some wildly off-the-mark marketing campaigns (“Who the hell is Dave Matthews?” asked one lamentable poster — “Who the hell cares?” retorted the British public), and his career-long unwillingness to play by rules, with the usual single-video-album-tour routine.

Quite why he should care about us is something of a mystery. Because, at the age of 42, Dave Matthews would seem to have it all — lovely wife (Ashley, a naturopath), lovely kids (seven-year-old twins, Stella and Grace, and baby son, August), lovely homes (one in Seattle and an organic farm in Virginia), great popularity, great wealth — and, to cap it all, very little trouble with those pesky paparazzi. Perhaps it’s because, more than a decade ago, he played Glastonbury and nobody noticed. “We were like the breakfast band,” he recalls. “It felt like people were peering out behind trees and over the field, shouting: ‘Shut the f*** up. What the hell is that noise?’”

Somehow, this South African with a stutter, receding hair and a bit of a double chin has managed to man oeuvre himself into being an American institution while staying off the celebrity radar. So, how does he achieve the enviable position of enjoying the wealth and eschewing the fame? “Because I’m the Khmer Rouge of boring,” he grins. “I live in Seattle, I have a wife and kids, and I don’t hang out with celebrities, or go to their parties. The nearest I get to being recognised is when I go to the grocery store and the kid behind the counter goes, ‘Dude, I saw you with the Stones.’ ” Even at the Grammys, where he won awards in 1997 and 2004, Matthews claims, amusingly but implausibly, that his were the only band to maintain their anonymity. “We walked the entire length of the red carpet without anyone taking pictures. People just stared and wondered why these white guys and black guys were going in together.” I have my doubts about any of this stuff; the last time I met Matthews, in Las Vegas three years ago, he made the front page of the paper just going out to dinner. He has even had the ultimate accolade of American pop culture — Ben & Jerry’s has named not one but two ice-cream flavours in his honour (One Sweet Whirled and Magic Brownies, since you ask).

Yet, for all this false modesty, he’s so likeable that you can forgive him for it. He is a Bono-like campaigner on a huge range of liberal issues, as well as a prominent Obama supporter. He’s also a dedicated environmentalist, despite an embarrassing incident in 2004 when the driver of a DMB tour bus was accused of dumping 800lb of human waste from a Chicago bridge... on top of a boatload of day-trippers below. Two years and a couple of expensive lawsuits later, the band pledged to fight global warming by offset-ting their entire carbon emissions from touring since they formed in 18 years ago by funding renewable-energy generators. Today, the list of causes supported by Matthews — through benefit shows and direct financial contributions — ranges from schools in New York and Hawaii to Tibetan independence, lung-cancer research, nature conservation, the victims of the Virginia Tech shootings, tsunami relief in Sri Lanka and, most notably of all, helping the people of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He was also a prominent performer on the 2004 Vote for Change tour in support of John Kerry’s failed presidential campaign against George W Bush, sharing a stage with Bruce Springsteen — as he will be in London, though there is no political agenda this time.

So, we’re bound to like Matthews, the man — with his self-deprecating humour and fondness for rude stories and a good drink, he’d go down a storm on Jonathan Ross or Graham Norton. But will we ever get his music?

Matthews himself is convinced things will change with his band’s seventh studio album, Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, a reference to the band’s private nickname for their sax player, LeRoi Moore, who died last summer following a quad-bike accident. Recorded in New Orleans and suffused with the Big Easy’s sultry melting pot of influences — funk, jazz and soul — the album stands as a tribute to Moore, whose mournful sax opens the album and is woven through a set of songs imbued with a sense of melancholy, mortality and morbid fear of impending global catastrophe. Mortality is never far from the surface in the lyrics of Matthews — whose sister was murdered by her husband in 1994 — and his latest songs pack a powerful emotional punch, reinforced by the sympathetic production of Rob Cavallo (Green Day, My Chemical Romance), taking over after a long stint by Steve Lillywhite. Big Whiskey is certainly a radical departure from the DMB’s previous work, which has, their leader concedes easily, failed, after their first two albums, to capture the fluid and freewheeling live sound from which they made their name and fortune.

Matthews, having moved to the American South after school in South Africa, formed his band in 1991 in Charlottesville, Virginia. His fellow band members were a multiracial group of jazz musicians, including the drummer Carter Beauford, Moore, and the then 16-year-old bass prodigy Stefan Lessard, later joined by the violinist Boyd Tinsley. Playing regular gigs at the bar where Matthews worked, and soon becoming a fixture around their home state, they had a far from conventional line-up and a unique sound, with sax and violin the prominent instruments, married to Matthews’s soulful delivery and folk-influenced guitar playing. Their career developed largely through word of mouth and, to a lesser extent, still does so today, with the band continuing to encourage its fans to trade bootleg tapes of live shows (although they were also prominent in a legal crackdown on bootleggers trying to profit from their shows), which are built on improvisation among the band’s highly proficient musicians.

“Dave Matthews is a very American phenomenon,” says Rolling Stone’s assistant editor, Andy Greene. “The whole thing started on college campuses in the mid-1990s. They were a sort of frat-rock landmark, where every dorm room would play this music, and going to see them play was a kind of dating ritual. And those fans have stayed with them.”

Now Matthews is hoping to convert some new ones in a new country. In a rare burst of belligerence from such an unassuming man, he predicts confidently that England will finally embrace the Dave Matthews Band phenomenon. “I feel like I can either play you the record or I can punch you in the face,” he declares with a wild grin. “That’s really the way I feel about it. If I was run over by a car now, then this album — none of the other ones — is what I’ve done in my life. This is my greatest single achievement besides my children — if, as I hope, they turn out well. This is the best thing I’ve ever done.”

Warming to his theme, he adds: “I feel I could play it for somebody or just choke them or kick them in the shins and laugh at them. I’ve never felt like this before with a record.” But what if he’s wrong? He looks as if he has never countenanced the possibility. “If this album doesn’t move more people around the world,” he declares, collapsing into a heh-heh-heh kind of laugh, “then I will think that, truly, we should stay the f*** here in America.”

[Bluecow2]

Originally Posted by jas230314

none of the reviews have the balls to admit this album is great. Give it a year, and even this board will give the album an A

The media has notoriously not given much due to DMB, so these ratings are the best the band has gotten.

But I disagree with you. I think the exact opposite will happen. I think a year from now fans will see this album as a very good nice album...but it won't be a DMB classic. Simply based on lyrics alone, this album is not Perfect "A" material.

[Xavid]

[quote=

“Dave Matthews is a very American phenomenon,” says Rolling Stone’s assistant editor, Andy Greene. “The whole thing started on college campuses in the mid-1990s. They were a sort of frat-rock landmark, where every dorm room would play this music, and going to see them play was a kind of dating ritual. And those fans have stayed with them.”


Geez I love how Rolling Stone marginalizes and belittles DMB and us fans.

[Ant_Berk]

AMG Review is a 4.5 out of 5....There best rating for a DMD album since BS and UTTAD. I guess they liked it:

Reviewby Stephen Thomas ErlewineTragedy has a way of putting everything into perspective, a truism that's brought into sharp relief by the Dave Matthews Band. LeRoi Moore, the group's saxophonist, died in an ATV accident in 2008, something that shook the DMB to their core and they've responded as any working band does: by carrying on, playing gigs — including one on the day of his passing — and finishing the album they were recording at the time of his death, turning Big Whiskey & the GrooGrux King into a tribute to their fallen comrade. By saluting his spirit, DMB wind up returning to their roots, jettisoning any of the well-manicured crossover pop of Stand Up and reviving the loose-limbed jams that were their '90s specialty, a sound they've largely abandoned — at least on record — since 1998's Before These Crowded Streets. During that long, long decade between Before and Big Whiskey, DMB remained one of America's biggest bands even though much of those ten years found Matthews working through various existential crises — things got too big so he pulled away from the band, turned out a dark solo record, then came back — and his namesake band drifted along with him. Here, everything snaps back into focus: what was glossy is now clean and unvarnished; there is no avoidance of their rangy, loping rhythms or predilection for elastic solos; and these signatures — shunned on record, not on-stage — are embraced warmly, given muscle, and married to the dark undercurrents that have flowed throughout Matthews' new-millennium writing. Surely, Moore's early death weighs heavily here — he is the GrooGrux King of the album's title and there are many allusions to him in lyrics — but Matthews also ties in references to Hurricane Katrina and war, all as part of his wide-open meditations on mortality and morality. Not all of Big Whiskey is about death: there is an equal amount of love tunes, plus one of Matthews' casually vulgar sex songs, all celebrating enduring relationships, providing a counterpoint to the waves of melancholy. But what makes Big Whiskey & the GrooGrux King the Dave Matthews Band's richest, and quite possibly best, album is the implicit message that all the love and loss can be felt and shared through the music, that the creation of the music itself is the reason why they're here — and that's not just a moving tribute to LeRoi Moore, it's a reason for the band to keep moving on.

[Bluecow2]

[quote=Xavid;9542009][quote=

“Dave Matthews is a very American phenomenon,” says Rolling Stone’s assistant editor, Andy Greene. “The whole thing started on college campuses in the mid-1990s. They were a sort of frat-rock landmark, where every dorm room would play this music, and going to see them play was a kind of dating ritual. And those fans have stayed with them.”


Geez I love how Rolling Stone marginalizes and belittles DMB and us fans.[/QUOTE]
He's talking about how the band started...I think he is spot on.

[NeatFreakGeek]

interesting that most of these fail to mention the biggest reason for the "change in sound" on this record -- Tim.

[sydneyDMBfan]

Dave Matthews Band; Funny the Way It Is
Billboard (30 May 2009)

The Dave Matthews Band makes an appearance after a four-year absence, with the first single from its new album, "Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King" (June 2). A lot has changed since then, including the death of founding member/saxophonist LeRoi Moore and the return of guitarist Tim Reynolds, who hasn't recorded with the band since 1998. "Funny the Way It Is" finds the group taking a somber look at life's ironies, pairing it with a sunny melody and bright musical landscape. While DMB fans of old hoping the group would revisit its original jam roots might be disappointed with such a concise musical structure, "Funny" is bound to expose the band to a wider, more mainstream adult audience.

[sydneyDMBfan]

Billboard CD reviews (30 May 2009)
ARTIST: DAVE MATTHEWS BAND
ALBUM: BIG WHISKEY AND THE GROOGRUX KING (RCA Records)

"Big Whiskey" is a big moment for the Dave Matthews Band -- it's the act's first album in four years and first since the sudden August death of founding saxophonist (and titular king) LeRoi Moore. But this eulogy is a celebration, and "Big Whiskey" is a dense, humid album that, befitting its New Orleans origins, shrewdly cuts its melancholy with exuberance and vice versa. "Shake Me Like a Monkey" is classic DMB stutter-stepping funk, "Squirm" is an Eastern-flavored epic, "Why I Am" is a radio-directed bottle rocket with a sneaky little time shift, and "Time Bomb" unfolds into a full-blast rocker with Matthews doing his best Eddie Vedder. Moore's ghost haunts throughout -- the saxman's fluttery work appears sporadically, most clearly on the sweet, sad "Lying in the Hands of God" -- and the band clearly poured grief into the swelling carpe diem tune "Dive In." Matthews' lyrics can be of the make-love-shine variety, and there are a few meandering detours as usual, but "Big Whiskey" finds the band at its most pointed and purposeful in years.

[sydneyDMBfan]

Strong `Whiskey' from Dave Matthews Band
By JED GOTTLIEB
Boston Herald (29 May 2009)

DAVE MATTHEWS BAND
"Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King" (RCA)

Grade: B

Dave Matthews was never a power chord guy.

His idiosyncratic, lithe acoustic picking and plucking has long helped define his band's sound. But on "Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King" - DMB's first studio release in four years and first without saxophonist LeRoi Moore, who died early in the album's recording - Dave often swaps his acoustic for some electricity.

The move finally makes sense.

DMB - which plays Fenway Park tonight and tomorrow in advance of Tuesday's "Big Whiskey" release - has struggled and mostly failed for a decade to get a big rock sound without subjugating the gentle intimacy that makes the band distinctive. First the jam giants got big and slick on 2001's "Everyday" with producer Glen Ballard (Alanis Morissette, lame '90s Aerosmith); then they got big and slick and lifeless on 2005's "Stand Up" with producer Mark Batson (Seal, Eminem). Now uber-producer Rob Cavallo (Green Day, Kid Rock) tries his hand.

And the third time's a charm. Cavallo balances airy acoustics and grounded electric power by plugging Dave in when it makes sense (the chunky rocker "Why I Am," furious screamer "Time Bomb") and letting him be himself elsewhere. Fans who love the band for its minor key, Middle Eastern rhythms and grungy jazz tunes will be happier than they've been in years.

Cavallo gets credit for pulling off what others couldn't - electric guitar AND Earth Wind & Fire horns in "Shake Me Like a Monkey." Nice! But DMB deserves the praise for finally pushing back against a producer to create necessary artistic tension.

Moore's saxophone is scattered across the album, from the Charles Neville-inspired opener "Grux" to the secret cut that closes "Big Whiskey." But it's not his playing but his death that focuses the band.

Like the acoustic/electric harmony, there's a balance of playful tribute and sentimentality. And while lightweight philosophizing is Dave's chief lyrical sin ("Funny the way it is/If you think about it/ Somebody's going hungry and someone else is eating out"), when matched with his fond memories for Moore in "Why I Am," he sounds honest - and powerful.

Death can force a guy to grow. So can a good producer. "Big Whiskey" is proof.

[BotheLaneFan]

Originally Posted by TheTallOne

People need to stop saying this is the best album. It's good, but nowhere close to being the top.

Honestly, if I were to rank the albums on first listen, it'd go a lot like this.

1. Big Whiskey
2. Everyday
3. UTTAD
4. Stand Up
5. Crash
6. Busted Stuff
7. Before These Crowded Streets.

[sydneyDMBfan]

The Boston Globe (29 May 2009)
Out of grief they rekindle their groove ; Dave Matthews Band honors late saxophonist on heartfelt CD
Sarah Rodman

The first sound you hear on the vibrant new Dave Matthews Band album, "Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King," out Tuesday, is a contemplative sax line. It feels relaxed, offhanded, simultaneously pensive and joyful. It sounds as if the musician were just sitting on a fire escape somewhere playing for his own pleasure and someone surreptitiously captured the moment.

"The true essence of the band is on this record, and it starts off right there," Dave Matthews Band bassist Stefan Lessard says of "Grux," the opening interlude played by the band's late sax player, LeRoi Moore.

Moore, who passed away in August due to complications from injuries he sustained in an ATV accident in June, also provides the album's coda, a chipper little snippet stuck onto the end of the final tune, "You and Me."

Those bits, says Lessard, are both a tribute to Moore and emblematic of the band's return to a sense of from-the-ground-up, collective composition.

"Everything gets produced and becomes these great tunes, but ["Grux" represents] the original idea of something and that's how we get to it, just by playing along with each other."

That healthy musical group dynamic reflects a healthy, and hard won, interpersonal group dynamic. The Virginia quintet, which rose to stadium-level success in the 1990s on the back of its improvisational fusion of genres, had been flirting with creative and personal burnout after more than 15 years on the road and in the studio.

But Lessard, on the phone from Laguna Beach during a break in the tour that brings the band to Fenway Park tonight and tomorrow, says the members made a renewed commitment to the music and their friendships prior to the "GrooGrux" sessions. "We wanted to release a record where we felt we had our whole heart into it," says Lessard.

And you can hear it. It's in the way that Matthews whimsically indulges his lascivious proclivities in the raunchy, horn-soaked funk rocker "Shake Me Like a Monkey" or screams until he's hoarse on the uncharacteristically hard-rocking "Time Bomb." It oozes from the smoky harmonies and sinuous melody of the ballad "Lying in the Hands of God." It slithers out of the serpentine Eastern rhythms of "Squirm."

"I think that this is a return but maybe with a little more of a mature sound," says Lessard of what he believes is the group's strongest album in a decade. He's grateful that the group regained its equilibrium and began re cording before Moore passed away. (Jeff Coffin of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones also contributes parts and is reprising his role as the band's touring saxophonist.)

"LeRoi loved being in the studio. He was really excited to work with [producer] Rob Cavallo, and he was really excited about the way we were approaching it with these songs: getting together in a room and taking ideas that we'd hashed out during a jam session and creating arrangements," Lessard says. "There's video of us back in Seattle and LeRoi's so into it saying, `Hey, try this here and try this there!' And I'm thinking that's a lot of work for me, man."

After Moore's death, it was that energy that got the band back into the studio. "That original excitement that 'Roi had with the music that we were making really inspired us to continue and get that feeling onto the record."

Lessard credits longtime Green Day producer Cavallo with helping capture that energy by encouraging the band to experiment with its trademark jams.

"He said, `You guys go out there and just play whatever you want but I'm going to stop you at about 10 minutes," says Lessard, recalling that Cavallo would then challenge the band to change tempo or key or vibe. "We probably had a total of 40 or some little jams, and he brought his favorite 20 to Seattle and said, `There's a song inside this jam. We just have to figure out what it is.' And that was probably the big difference of anything we've ever done."

"The circumstances are horrible to have lost him," Lessard says of his bandmate and friend. "But he left us with such a great body of work and with such great ideas we were just so lucky."

[sydneyDMBfan]

`Whiskey' could use more grit by Jonathan Perry
The Boston Globe (29 May 2009)

The stage, rather than the studio, is where the Dave Matthews Band has always shone brightest. In fact, much like the grandaddy of jam bands, the Grateful Dead (or DMB's improvisation-minded contemporaries Phish), the veteran outfit's expansive live approach tends to outdo its more conventionally structured, middle-of-the- road recorded efforts.

The same can be said for "Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King," the group's sixth studio album, out Tuesday and named in honor of late Dave Matthews Band cofounder and saxophonist LeRoi Moore ("GrooGrux" refers to him, apparently). In fact, the first and last thing you hear is Moore's sax, first conversing with and darting across Carter Beauford's drum patterns on "Grux," then reappearing briefly at album's end as a looped groove hidden in the digital abyss.

In between those tributes lies what we've come to expect from a Dave Matthews Band disc: a safe bet on reliable product. Like most of its predecessors, the group's first album in four years is a perfectly competent and professionally executed, if occasionally soporific, entry to the band's familiar catalog.

As usual, we get mildly funky party jams (the brass-buoyed "Shake Me Like a Monkey," whose opening recalls Cameo's "Word Up"); mid- tempo message songs ("Funny the Way It Is" finds Matthews musing generically about babies, soldiers, and the unjust state of the world); and cuddlesome ballads about couples plotting an escape to paradise after the kids have left home ("You and Me").

This time out, the band worked with longtime Green Day producer Rob Cavallo - and granted, Cavallo's resume includes helming sessions for polished popsters like Jewel and Alanis Morissette - but one wishes more of the grit, edge, or energy that's defined Cavallo's partnership with the dynamic Bay Area punk-pop trio had rubbed off here.

There are a few invigorating exceptions scattered about, however. "Seven" is a sinewy slice of sly, syncopated funk. And the countdown- to-combustion workout, "Time Bomb," finds Matthews melting down and singing hard (an energizing change from his typically enervated approach) as life and sanity unravel around him.

But too often the album is larded with adult-contemporary fare such as the string-saturated "My Baby Blue," and the numbingly new age-esque mood of "Lying in the Hands of God," accented with what sounds like flugelhorn (and are those wind chimes I hear?). Given the musically versatile, vaunted band behind it, "Big Whiskey," for all its stylistic reach and array of textures, is frequently beset with a curious bout of blandness.