after slinging shit about DMB pretty much since 2004 (aka the last time they came out with any new, interesting songs...and just like the batch of new interesting songs before these, scrapped them in favor of largely bland radio-fare songs and wandering, ungrounded songs on stand up), i was all ready to dislike the new album. though i thought the first single "funny the way it is" was decent, it didn't bowl me over with enthusiasm. i used to be a huge DMB fan (weird, huh?) and this was actually the first album of theirs that i haven't planned to buy the day it is released.
fortunately, pandora was streaming it for free today. and it's pretty good. i'm to the point now where i can recognize that maybe my problem with the post-before these crowded streets DMB is an issue i have with their style of music, and not the fact that the music is objectively bad. i mean, they've had songs on each albums since BTCS that have been good, but those albums mostly contain tracks that i'm going to skip over or that i'm going to be less excited about hearing the opening notes of in concert (and i think most DMB fans would agree with me here). i really, REALLY liked 2003's some devil, but stand up did nothing for me, except for a few of the songs that were eventually redeemed in concert but still aren't at all impressive on record. even back in the "good old days", DMB was a band like phish for me: you buy the albums understanding that they're reference points. the band doesn't make the "definitive" version of each song for the album; instead, they are blueprint versions that lay out the foundation for later live versions to build on. but even live, for the last few years, DMB hasn't really done anything for me. i like them a bit better now, but i have a sneaking suspicion that this is simply because they've added a trumpet and guitar guru tim reynolds and lost the keyboards. this year and last, they have/had a more aggressive, guitar-y sound that, while not necessarily better, it at least different.
anyway, the new record. it reminds me a lot of stand up, actually. though with more horns and much, MUCH better lyrics. thank god. but each song still has that sort of 21st-century DMB structure to it: fast-paced horns-and-drums intro, dave sings a lot, quasi-arhythmically, about some things. then there's a catchy chorus, and a bridge wherein things slow down and dave sings a bit more rhythmically. somewhere there's in instrumental break for a few seconds, or a few seconds of scat singing, or both at the same time. then the song ends and we do it again. it's not bad (at all). i like the hell out of the first few songs on this album. it's just that as i got further in, i started to get a little bored. there's nothing to shake up the monotony except for a few acoustic-style ballads...and dave's repetitive, almost rap-like lyric style doesn't lend itself well to songs where there aren't a lot of other things going on. some of the acoustic-y songs are really gorgeous, but after the eleven-thousandth repetition of "you and me baby", you feel like you're watching a commercial and not listening to an artist who has written songs like "the dreaming tree".
song structure aside, this album sounds a lot different. there are a lot more layers of sound flying around than on stand up, yet they blend together more smoothly. there are some great trumpet parts, and reynolds gets a few great little breaks. this is the first time in a long time that some DMB songs have sounded actually "new". they've moved on to something new, and it's a good thing...i'm just not sure that i personally like it all that much. i hope other people do, though.
addendum: i also downloaded phish's "time turns elastic" today. i preordered the orchestra piece that this song is the heart of (written by trey and don hart) a few months ago, but it hasn't been released yet...i'm guessing this phish version is a rewrite of the whole orchestra piece for phish's new album. it's a 13 minute-long, largely orchestrated piece, and on first listen i like it. it's hard to say much more on a new phish song. there's so much going on in it, i'm going to have mull over it for awhile and digest the details. two odd things:
1. the jamming/instrumental parts in this piece aren't as trey-centric as you might expect. his
guitar is there, but there's a lot more going on. you hear mike a lot more than you are probably used to. i like this. as much as i like listening to trey rip on his guitar and drown everything else out, he's been doing that for 23 years now, and it's nice to hear something different going on. however, will this kind of a mix make live shows less energetic? probably.
2. lots of trey singing. actually, this piece made me think first of bar 17, trey's solo album. there are a lot of interesting melodic twists and turns and key changes, but unlike, say, "divided sky" or "you enjoy myself", the instruments don't just get to shine on their own; trey is usually singing along with them. the lyrics are pretty standard phish-y fare: whimsical, semi-confusing, semi-comforting. but after about 8 minutes of hearing trey sing about being wrapped in melody and darkness, i honestly wanted to just hear the band rip loose and play some music. they do, towards the end, but it was sort of frustrating waiting that long. this is very cool, and even cooler that they made it available early (and even cooler that steve lillywhite is producing this album), so i'm not complaining. i'm just a little worried by the prospect of new phish shows/material starting to lean on these slow, introspective ballads too much that there's nothing to jump up and down to. this weekend, sun kil moon gave me an education in what happens when a really solid band plays it too straight on stage, and i don't want to have to hear that lesson again for two whole days when i see phish at the gorge in august.
i'm going to just go ahead and listen to the new wilco in a bit. thoughts pending.
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