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Dave Matthews Band Reviews | |
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Crash:
It's tempting to label the Dave Matthews Band as torchbearers of the Grateful Dead's moderate rock fusion and send them off on the next summer tour featuring either Blues Traveler or the Spin Doctors. But there is more at work here, particularly on the band's second major-label release. Crash pairs soothing sounds (flute, acoustic guitar, six-string bass) with a dark emotional undercurrent. The South African (by way of Virginia) frontman reveals a rare intensity on the title track and the free-form "41," while the group shows that it's not afraid to let loose on songs such as the stirring "Too Much." Producer Steve Lillywhite adds an impressive sheen to the recordings.
Under The Table & Dreaming:
With popcorn acoustic guitars, trampoline fiddles, bumper-car bass lines, and caramel-coated sax, the Dave Matthews Band's major-label debut is like an evening at the fair. "The Best of What's Around" and "What Would You Say" swirl like the amusement-park ride on the album's cover, sweeping the exhilarated and lightheaded listener higher as the ride spins faster. "Satellite" glides breezily like the prettiest horse on the carousel, "Ants Marching" runs around hitting the bell with the sledgehammer and winning the largest stuffed animals at the target-range booths, and "Lover Lay Down" is the quietest moment on the disc--like the sun setting on a baby's sleeping, snow-cone-stained face collapsed on her daddy's shoulder.
Before These Crowded Streets:
The Dave Matthews Band moves its music forward by increments on Before These Crowded Streets. While the album offers more of the folkish melodies and vaguely internationalist rhythms that made this Charlottesville, Virginia, group a major record and concert draw, it also finds them adding new colorings to the mix. Alanis Morissette guests on two cuts, "Spoon" and the disc's first single, "Don't Drink the Water," and banjo whiz Bela Fleck sits in, too. More interesting, though, is the modernist string arrangement played by the Kronos Quartet on the driving "Halloween." Matthews's obvious hopes to lead something other than a jam band are at least partly fulfilled here; at the same time, Streets should keep his customers satisfied.
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Dave Matthews Band @ CanEHdian | |
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Live at Red Rocks:
Like a lot of his jam-band compatriots, Dave Matthews's personality can come off as muted in the studio, but really spreads out live--which makes this a must-have for fans who don't already have the bootleg, or nineteen more from the same period. But absent a hits sampler, Live at Red Rocks could also be the best Matthews album for more tentative listeners. It draws heavily from the Under the Table and Dreaming material, as well as from the then-upcoming Crash. "All Along the Watchtower," previously only available on an indie EP, ends the set.
Listener Supported:
If you're of the opinion that the Grateful Dead comparisons that dog the Dave Matthews Band ring false, consider that with the release of Listener Supported, Matthews has put out more live albums (four, if you count Live at Luther College, a duet album with Tim Reynolds) than studio efforts (three, if you don't count the Recently EP). That's a lot of live albums, but Matthews fans probably wouldn't have it any other way. Now it's more possible than ever to haggle over which version of, say, "Warehouse"--which appears on Live at Red Rocks, Luther College, and the new album, as well as on Recently and Under the Table and Dreaming--is definitive. But "Warehouse" aside, the Matthews Band isn't making the same album over and over. Listener Supported contains a nice mix of tunes, albeit with a fair emphasis on their most recent studio effort, Before These Crowded Streets. Among the highlights is a funky, freewheeling take on "Rapunzel," and gorgeous readings of "#41," and the traditional country tune "Long Black Veil." With over two and a half hours of music, the album is enough to sate most DMB fans, at least until the next live album turns up. Reviews Copyright Amazon.com
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