The music made by Dave Matthews and his sometimes cohorts in the
\nDave Matthews Band has been called a lot of things – at their best,
\ndynamic, richly textured, eclectic; at their worst, unstructured,
\nmeandering, self-indulgent. But, boring?<\/p>\n
Not likely.<\/p>\n
Which is why it’s such a shock to find that this disc, Matthews’
\nfirst solo album of new studio material, is flat-out boring.<\/p>\n
For his first true solo album, Matthews jettisons the entire DMB
\nand brings in a fresh crew. Sure, why not? Solo albums are an
\nopportunity to try something different. And Matthews pulls in
\nquality players, too: Trey Anatasio (Phish) on guitar, Tony Hall
\n(Neville Brothers, Bob Dylan) on bass, Brady Blade (Steve Earle,
\nEmmylou Harris) on drums, plus frequent musical co-conspirator Tim
\nReynolds on guitar. The grooves, as you might expect, are confident
\nand the vibe relaxed.<\/p>\n
But therein lies the problem – it’s
\ntoo<\/i> relaxed; there’s no direction. This may be the most
\naimless album Dave Matthews has ever recorded, and without the
\nexotic instrumentation of the standard DMB lineup (acoustic
\nguitar-sax-violin-bass-drums), the music that emerges is
\ndismayingly pedestrian.<\/p>\n
Lyrically, Matthews seems stuck as deep as ever in the “love and
\ndeath” rut he’s occupied for much of his career. For all the gloom
\nof its lyrics, the DMB’s last album
\nBusted Stuff<\/i> does effectively capture the band’s terrific
\nenergy and versatility. By contrast,
\nSome Devil<\/i> is languorous and depressed to the point where
\nthe songs blend together like soup, a thin, listless broth without
\nthe spice of Leroi Moore’s bleating horns and Boyd Tinsley’s eerie
\nviolin.<\/p>\n
Tracks like “So Damn Lucky” and “Trouble” tease with pleasant
\nmelodies, but fail to go anywhere, simply repeating themselves into
\nmonotony. Others like “Save Me” add some bite to the guitar and
\ncomplexity to the rhythm track, but still feel one-dimensional
\ncompared to a typical DMB arrangement.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, the best moments on this album lie in the quieter
\ncorners, where Matthews strips things down even farther. The title
\ntrack is a standout, an artful self-examination sung with delicate
\ngrace over only Matthews’ own gentle, precise picking on an
\nelectric guitar. Notable also are the meditative, Daniel Lanois-ish
\n“Grey Blue Eyes,” and the pretty love song “Baby.”<\/p>\n
These few bright spots can’t make up, though, for train wrecks
\nlike the maudlin, tiresome “Gravedigger,” where Matthews offers up
\nnot one but two versions of a song he’s already written a
\nhalf-dozen times over the last decade. (The dude has a serious
\nfixation with his own grave, lying in it, the people digging it,
\nthe rain falling on it, etc., etc. Get some help, Dave.
\nSeriously.)<\/p>\n
This album suggests a conclusion sure to be the subject of hot
\ndebate in DMB fan circles – it’s entirely possible that the weakest
\nlink in the Dave Matthews Band may be Dave Matthews himself. Absent
\nthe dynamics of a DMB arrangement, these songs, with a handful of
\nexceptions, fail to ignite. DM should run, not walk, back to the
\nB.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":26511,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6932],"rating":[11204],"class_list":["post-37748","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-dave-matthews","rating-rating-c-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37748"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37748"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}