Big Whiskey And The GrooGrux King

Big Whiskey And The GrooGrux King (2009)

Big Whiskey is the oddly named new album by the Dave Matthews Band, a follow-up to the reserved, toned-down, dense, yet extremely listenable Stand Up (2005). The album is also the first released after the death of lead saxophonist and founding member LeRoi Moore following an off-roading accident last year. With Moore's unfortunate passing, the band seems to have lost most of the lofty, free-flowing jam-session-esque sound that has characterized them for the past 15 years. Also gone, it seems, is any cohesion to the album, and what we're left with is a jumble of songs that sound extremely similar and sedate yet also, paradoxically, thematically unrelated to each other. Compared to the band's past efforts (especially Before These Crowded Streets, the Grammy nominated album that weaved a tapestry of melancholic sounds that segued into each other; and the aforementioned Stand Up, which kept up a dark, morose, yet ultimately transcendent theme throughout), Big Whiskey is like the aural equivalent of a poorly planned theme party set in a Southern mansion where, inside, each room of the mansion portrays and entirely separate theme ("You got alligator in my whiskey!" "Yeah? Well, you got time bombs in my squirming monkeys!" "Whare's the groogrux? What's a groogrux? WHERE THE FUCK IS THE GROOGRUX?!") The few songs that offer related and complimentary sounds and themes are buffered by a slew of songs that seem as if they were recorded right before the band went to sleep, and offer no topical relation to each other. (Why is that a problem? Well, I tend to think about the comparison with another band I listen to, Gorillaz: whereas their first, self-titled album is a disjointed hodgepodge of listenable tracks, their 2005 sophomore effort, Demon Days, is cohesive funky, apocalyptically catchy, and one can listen to the songs individually or as a whole and come out with a favorable result either way. Not so with Big Whiskey.) After the streamlined beauty of Stand Up, it's a shame the band stumbled back a few steps with this album.
To its credit, though, Big Whiskey does offer some listenable tunes, just nothing I can describe as jam worthy (I can only seriously picture 2 or 3 songs of the album's 13 being added to their concert set lists). The opening track, "Grux", is a one-and-a-half minute solo by the late LeRoi. The track starts slow and melancholic before building to a pitch, while in the background we faintly hear a band starting to tune up softly: the final high note holds, lingering, and fades away, instead transforming into Dave's energetic yowl which throws us into the next track, "Shake Me Like A Monkey". "...Monkey" sounds and feels like classic Dave Matthews: free flowing, lofty, and and an energtic tempo (also: the song is about sex. Shocking!) The next track, "Funny the Way It Is", is comparable in tone to the band's previous "Mother, Father".....only slower. And more somber. Much, mich slower. "Funny The Way It Is" lacks the energy or impact of "Mother, Father", and it suffers for it. Unfortunately, the successive tracks fare no better, and it isn't until the quadfecta of "Spaceman", "Squirm", "Alligator Pie", and (my favorite of the album) "Seven" that an overall theme and cohhesion actually appears. "Squirm" sounds like the opening track to Sgt. Pepper, where a fictional band starts performing at a fictional venue...but here it is unfortuantely stuck in the middle of the album instead of the opening (or at least the follow-up track to the excellent "Grux"); it just feels incredibly out of place here. It's hard to even describe the sound of the songs other than the four I just named, since they have the energy of a Benadryll fiend hopped up on horse tranquilizers, and I honestly can't remember a single tune from any of them, even having listened to the entire album 6 full times since July (although the chorus to "Why I Am" is prettty good...considering what a tepid song it is.)
But in an album of 13 songs, I've listed less than half of those that I actually like. Is it enough to have only 6 songs, barely half the album, that actualyl sound as if they have any life, energy, and "umph" to them, that I might actually want to listen to over and over again? I don't know. I don't think it is enough for me. Hell, I can listen to Stand Up and Before These Crowded Streets the whole albums through, but I can't see myself doing that very often for Big Whiskey.
Perhaps LeRoi's passing put a sombre tone to the rest of the band members, and therefore the album (although he was alive to record/collaborate most of the songs of the album before saxophonist Jeff Coffin covered for him for a few songs), or perhaps his death made the remaining band members contemplate their own mortality and actually mature a bit and break out of the college-frat-rock demographic with which they're associated. But, dammit, that's what makes them who they are. And, to be honest, they did that with Before These Crowded Streets and Stand Up, both to killer effect. One can mature without cutting outthe energy and verve (I'm looking at you, Green Day). Hell, the Beatles grew up a bit and wound up releasing fucking Rubber Soul and Revolver. Maybe this is the Dave Matthews Band's Rubber Soul. Just a lot less good.
It's a stumble and a misstep, but the hardcore fans will find at least a few songs to like here. I did.

P.S. --- if you can find the bonus track, "Beach Ball", it's SO much better than any other song on the album. Take that from what you will.


Enjoy a remastered version of the song "Seven", my favorite of the album, and featuring a ridiculous picture of Dave on a giant screen at some concert.



And the aforementioned bonus track, "Beach Ball":