The Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Dave Matthews Band’s 'Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King’ shimmers with sadness

There’s an inescapable air of sadness permeating even the funkiest tracks on Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King , the Dave Matthews Band’s first studio album in four years.

The peculiarly titled record, the collective’s final effort with founding member/saxophonist LeRoi Moore (who died last year from injuries in an ATV accident) is also DMB’s finest effort in a decade, which seems all the more bittersweet in Moore’s absence.

Produced by Rob Cavallo, King comes closest yet to synthesizing the jazzy spontaneity of a DMB concert and the calculated density of studio recording, even if Matthews’ songwriting continues to be one of the most maddeningly inconsistent aspects of an otherwise airtight ensemble.

Deliberately structured in happy-sad-hopeful fashion — the startling Time Bomb might be one of the grimmest songs that Matthews has ever penned — King spins gaily through its opening moments; lead single Funny the Way It Is hearkens to the carpe diem jams of Ants Marching and Tripping Billies , while the gorgeous Lying in the Hands of God nods in the direction of Typical Situation and The Space Between.

King ’s middle portion is where Matthews, drummer Carter Beauford, bassist Stefan Lessard and violinist Boyd Tinsley settle into a slightly funereal, contemplative groove, obliquely mourning the loss of a brother. Moore did record a few parts before his death; Jeff Coffin has taken over saxophone duties, while guitarist Tim Reynolds and trumpeter Rashawn Ross also contribute.

But precise musical mood often crashes headlong into Matthews’ pedestrian observations, long the band’s Achilles’ heel. Mortality, love, life and vivid bursts of eroticism ("I just wanna eat you up/Nothing like the real thing," Matthews growls on Shake Me Like a Monkey ) are tangled with little sense of what’s animating the songs.

Not that Moore’s death should be solely driving this record, but Matthews infrequently articulates exactly what he’s driving at; if you’re sad, why not simply say so? Abstruse poetry occasionally works (see the runaway success of DMB’s lecherous Crash Into Me ) but for all his skill evoking a variety of sonic atmospheres, Matthews remains a woefully half-baked lyricist.

Big Whiskey goes down smooth, all told, resulting in DMB’s best front-to-back record since Before These Crowded Streets . The group continues to embrace ever more forceful elements — restless electric guitars and zesty brass punctuate all 13 songs like garish ink blots — and find a balance between the stage and the studio, discovering that each has its own endless possibilities.

Rating: 4 Stars