Before These Crowded Streets

The Dave Matthews Band made their reputation through touring, spending endless nights on the road improvising. Often, their records hinted at the eclecticism and adventure inherent in those improvisation, but Before These Crowded Streets is the first album to fully capture that adventurous spirit. Not coincidentally, it's their least accessible record, even if it's more of a consolidation than it is a step forward. Early Dave Matthews albums were devoted to the worldbeat fusions of Graceland and Sting, but his RCA efforts incorporated these influences into a smoother, pop-oriented style. Here, everything hangs out…

The fourth proper studio album by the Dave Matthews Band had a rough birth, as the group jettisoned a set of sessions recorded with their longtime producer Steve Lillywhite, starting afresh with Glen Ballard, the mastermind behind Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill. Ballard has a tremendous influence on the resulting record, collaborating with Matthews on every track and changing the direction of their sound. To a certain extent, the change is welcome, since Before These Crowded Streets suggested that the group was running out of steam, but the sudden shift toward measured maturation and slickness is jarring all the same, since it emphasizes Matthews' melodies and leadership over the group interplay that is the group's calling card…

On what may seem like a readymade gag, the psych-folk favorite covers the lost Dave Matthews Band album in full. He convincingly connects his adolescent love to his adult explorations.

Tragedy has a way of putting everything into perspective, a truism that's brought into sharp relief by the Dave Matthews Band. LeRoi Moore, the group's saxophonist, died in 2008, something that shook the DMB to their core and they've responded as any working band does: by carrying on, playing gigs – including one on the day of his passing – and finishing the album they were recording at the time of his death, turning Big Whiskey & the GrooGrux King into a tribute to their fallen comrade. By saluting his spirit, DMB wind up returning to their roots, jettisoning any of the well-manicured crossover pop of Stand Up and reviving the loose-limbed jams that were their '90s specialty, a sound they've largely abandoned – at least on record – since 1998's Before These Crowded Streets. During that long, long decade between Before and Big Whiskey, DMB remained one of America's biggest bands even though much of those ten years found Matthews working through various existential crises – things got too big so he pulled away from the band, turned out a dark solo record, then came back – and his namesake band drifted along with him. Here, everything snaps back into focus: what was glossy is now clean and unvarnished; there is no avoidance of their rangy, loping rhythms or predilection for elastic solos; and these signatures – shunned on record, not on-stage – are embraced warmly, given muscle, and married to the dark undercurrents that have flowed throughout Matthews' new-millennium writing.

Dave Matthews Band - Away From The World (Record Store Day Edition) (2013) {2CD Set Bama Rags Recordings ATOUK001CD}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 903 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 309 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 19 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2012 RCA / Bama Rags Recordings / ATO Records | ATOUK001CD
Rock / Adult Alternative Rock / Alternative / Indie Rock / American Trad Rock / Jam Bands

Away from the World is the eighth studio album by Dave Matthews Band (DMB), slated for release on September 11, 2012. Steve Lillywhite produced Away from the World, which marks his first released studio album with the band since 1998's Before These Crowded Streets. A series of failed sessions with Lillywhite led to the leaked Lillywhite Sessions in 2001 and Lillywhite's departure from the band's work.

In the Fall of 1998, Dave Matthews Band was nearing the end of a months-long tour in support of their new album, Before These Crowded Streets. This show from Boise State University Pavilion on November 2nd, which is also Carter’s Birthday, includes long-time collaborator, Tim Reynolds, onstage for inspired versions of Rapunzel, Stay (Wasting Time), Crush, as well as extended jams on Lie In Our Graves and Jimi Thing.

5CD compilation entitled: 'Songs From The 100 Best Australian Albums'. It is a companion to a new book written by John O'Donnell, Toby Creswell & Craig Mathieson. As the name suggests, the book counts down the 100 Best Aussie albums of the pop era with detailed exploration of why the albums were chosen. The compilation is a 5CD pack and will include many tracks which rarely clear for compilations including not one, but two Midnight Oil tracks. It also features Easybeats - Friday On My Mind, Daddy Cool - Eagle Rock, The Saints - I'm Stranded, John Farnham - You're The Voice, Crowded House - Better Be Home Soon, Powderfinger - These Days, The Presets - My People, and many more.