Away from the World

I don't buy a lot of albums but Dave Matthews Band stuff has always been my weakest. I think I have all of their major albums released as well as a couple live albums. I admit to being a bit disappointed by GrooGrux King but the circumstances surrounding that album and having lost a band member leave a heckuva lot of room for forgiveness. This newest album is a fantastic return to form from a Band that has always put out really amazing songs with unique sounds. I've been listening to it a lot right now (as well as the all DMB XM station they've setup to hype it... which is an awesome idea!). The album clocks in at a beefy 14 songs, 3 of which are live versions of songs elsewhere on the album. The songs, with one exception, are also universally longer than your typical "rock" fare. The overall album is a bit ballad heavy but the instrumentation on those ballads is so beautiful that it's an easily forgiven trait even if you're looking for something a little peppier.

1) Broken Things: Sets the tone for much of the album. It's a beautiful song with a really interesting message. It's a fairly upbeat ballad, however, and gives Boyd Tinsley (violin) a chance to do some fairly "classical" sounding violin work.

2) Belly Belly Nice: This song was originally called just "Belly Belly" when I downloaded the album. Subsequently, the Band renamed it and Amazon's cloud system pushed an update to me that updated the name. Dave indicated this was largely due to most of his friends, "especially women", liking the Belly Belly Nice pun more. Interesting. This song is very upbeat, uptempo and reminiscent of songs from Crash which is a good thing. This one has a very "ska" feel that reminded me in parts of Reel Big Fish, largely due to the prominent trumpet work used. That's something to listen for throughout the whole album is the subtle change in sound as a result of having a trumpet player on the roster (for the first time?). It's a very good song and a lot of fun to listen to. My favorite line, "Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water, Jack fell down and broke his crown 'cause he was messin' with the preacher's daughter."

3) Mercy: In my opinion, this is the most beautiful song on the album. A really amazing ballad with a great sound, great lyrics. The message from this song has an undercurrent in many of the songs in this album which is a new thing for DMB (GrooGrux notwithstanding). Everything done in it is subtle with an artist's touch. "Love is not a whisper or a weakness. Love is strong."

4) Gaucho: Okay, I'm going to say some negative things here and I want to preface them by saying first that this is a good song. If heard in isolation, I might have even said great song. Unfortunately, it suffers from a number of items both logistically and artistically that detracted from that greatness. First, message, tempo and lyrically, it's VERY similar to Mercy which immediately preceded it. They are very much "sister" songs in that regard and you always compare sisters to each other and Mercy comes out pretty clearly on top. Second, the factor that was supposed to differentiate it (alluded to in the title) is that it was intended to have a bit of a Latin flair. While the intro definitely had some of that with some very delicate, beautiful guitar work, it quickly shifted away from that and leaves you going, "Wait. What?" All that said, still a good song. I just hope when they perform it live they emphasize the latin elements of the song a bit better. It is a much more uptempo song than Mercy so if that's your thing you might prefer this one, I suppose.

5) Sweet: Another ballad. This one more of a love song rather than Mercy which was more social commentary. This one is king of a song ABOUT love rather than TO a specific lover. Dave shows he can exercise vocal restraint and that he has a pretty controlled falsetto (which he employs nearly the whole song). For the vast majority of the song, his only accompaniment is an acoustic guitar (the drum comes in a bit at the end and opens ).

6) The Riff: This was one I didn't warm to as quickly as others though I like it now. It's a weird song, very interesting instrumentation and some odd, introspective lyrics. I'm not certain whether it's a ballad or not. My favorite line, "I don't know the man that's livin' in my head if I don't know the woman sleeping in my bed."

7) Belly Full: Clearly a love song written to a person. Feels very personal, like it's been written to a specific person. Dave's voice is beautiful and is accompanied by a simple acoustic guitar and a (very!) subtle bit of Steffan Lessard on the Bass.

8) If Only: One of the more "fun" and carefree songs on the album. It feels like a throwback to something from the early 90's (Freedie Johnston maybe?) but I haven't been able to quite place it. I particularly like some of the up/down vocal gymnastics he does on this one. Another song where he spends much of his time in Falsetto with little back and forths that are nice. Very mellow.

9) Rooftop: Dave described this on on the radio as "Ballsy". I like the song but the chorus was a bit jarring (perhaps intentionally?) and felt a bit abrupt. It's probably the most "Rock and Roll" song on the album with some very 80's feeling to it and builds nicely to a crescendo in the end that's pretty fun.

10) Snow Outside: A great song that I totally didn't appreciate at first. The guitar work is perfect and the lyrics are lovely. I would probably describe it as haunting or perhaps hauntingly beautiful. The violin work is especially nifty in parts but it actually does a good job of showcasing everyone at some point with even the trumpet making some subtle appearances. It also has a tiny bit of cowbell.

11) Drunken Soldiers: DMB has a habit of putting at least one song on each album that is long and heavy on instrumental work. This is that song. This is NOT as good as Satellite although it does have good components. On the other hand, it clocks in at 9 minutes and the good pieces are kind of buried in the rest. I generally skip this song if the controls are at my fingertips although I don't bother if it's trouble to do it.

12-14) Three live songs: Gaucho, Mercy, Sweet. The fact that he selected these three songs to be on here as the live versions reinforces the idea that this is kind of a ballady-love focused album. As with all DMB songs, they're better live than the "radio" version. These songs haven't been in their rotation to get the full "live" treatment so they're very, very similar to the standard version. I think I would have preferred some live versions of older songs or even some of their covers (I caught a fan-frickin-tastic version of "Sweet Caroline" that they did as well as a version of the "Peanuts theme song" that was very fun). They're still good (Mercy is great). Sweet in particular was better live.