Album Review: Dave Matthews Band - Walk Around The Moon

The second half of Dave Matthews Band's career has been quite an interesting development. With their reputation as a jam band, and their penchant for excess during their concerts, somehow their records have been getting more introspective and somber. Part of me wonders if Dave saw the reaction to "The Lillywhite Sessions", and now realizes that record was a more fulfilling exercise as a writer than trying to write more songs like "So Much To Say".

Regardless, the recent DMB albums take time to develop, with plenty of quiet songs that meditate on Dave's acoustic guitars, his voice often staying a mumbled whisper until the climax. While I liked "Come Tomorrow", and have grown to really love "Away From The World", it's still jarring to put those records on after listening to my early memories of Dave shredding his throat singing "Halloween".

The first single for this new record album felt like a return to form. "Madman's Eyes" had more use of the horns, and brought back a bit of the Eastern atmosphere from songs like "The Last Stop". I had been thinking about the anniversary of "Before These Crowded Streets" already, and hearing something familiar made me wonder if this album might be a bit of a nod to the past.

The following singles, "Monsters" and "Walk Around The Moon" answered that question with a firm, "Not quite". The latter did have a looser feeling, but the songs are still built from the quiet foundations of recent years. "Before These Crowded Streets" could also be a quiet record, especially on the second half, but it used that as a balance to the more boisterous numbers early on. Since the band has been doing less of that as they go along, the albums have become more focused. Focus isn't a word we've used that often with DMB, so it's another slightly odd experience.

Half of the album's tracks clock in at less than three minutes, leaving them feeling a bit incomplete. They don't have enough time to build and develop, and there are too many of them to be segues into the more substantial tracks. Even those fail to break five minutes a single time. I'm not saying longer songs are a necessity, or would be better by nature of the extra time, but the tracks we do get don't have enough weight to them to anchor these shorter pieces in importance. They're putting down an anchor made of sponge.

Those gripes only come to the surface because the songs themselves aren't brimming with riffs and melodies that stand out to my ears. The title track has a lovely chorus, but it's one of the few times I felt really engaged with the record. Dave's guitar is either picking out wandering sets of notes, or it's completely inaudible. His vocals croon rather flat melodies for much of the record, and when he does try for a stickier chorus, the way the harmony vocals are layered in has an echo or phase issue that reminds me of sea-sickness. I don't recall ever having that sensation from a DMB record before.

I say all of this knowing something full well; recent DMB albums have taken a lot of time to win me over. My initial impression of them is not what I think of them now, so there is some hope this record will grow on me the way those did. That said, there were more initial ideas on those other records I could hold onto than I hear on this one. This record isn't a disaster on the scale of "Stand Up", but what I'm feeling right now is disappointment that this record straddles two eras of the band's sound, but doesn't have solid footing on either.

Check back with me later to see if that feeling holds up, but for now I have to say this record has left me wanting more.