Composer: Dave Matthews Band
Conductor: Dave Matthews Band
Label: RCA
Release Date: 2009-06-17
Rated: NONE
Genre: Recording
For a band that harnesses so much energy onstage, the Dave Matthews Band studio experience over the past decade has been exceedingly bland and lifeless. 2001’s Everyday and 2005’s Stand Up sound like a great jam band on the decline — directionless, passionless, and losing the ability to perform as a unit without a stadium full of ravenous fans. On their first album in four years, DMB have finally recaptured that earthy and innovative alt-pop sound they made famous in the ’90s. Big Whiskey & the GrooGrux King is a 13-song set of focused and sophisticated polyrhythmic grooves, bursting with instrumental virtuosity and energy.
The album pays tribute to founding member and saxophonist LeRoi Moore, who died last summer after an ATV accident; he’s the “GrooGrux King” of the title. A slow sax solo called the “Grux” opens the album, leading the five-piece into the fiery, frat-boy funk of “Shake Me Like a Monkey,” their most raucous single since 1996’s “Too Much.” More so than any album before, Big Whiskey balances that great DMB freeform rock sound (“Why I Am” and “Spaceman”) with deeper emotional chords that connect (“Funny the Way It Is” and “Dive In”). They even venture into new territory with the brooding symphonic bombast of “Squirm.”
