Dave Matthews Band - Big Whiskey & The GrooGrux King (2009)

Artist...............: Dave Matthews Band
Album................: Big Whiskey & The GrooGrux King
Genre................: Rock
Source...............: Cd
Year.................: 2009
Ripper...............: Exact Audio Copy
Codec................: FLAC
Information..........: TntVillage
Covers...............: Front
Total Size...........: 407 Mb


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Rewiev
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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. Surely, Moore's early death weighs heavily here -- he is the GrooGrux King of the

album's title and there are many allusions to him in lyrics -- but Matthews also ties in references to

Hurricane Katrina and war, all as part of his wide-open meditations on mortality and morality. Not all of

Big Whiskey is about death: there is an equal amount of love tunes, plus one of Matthews' casually vulgar

sex songs, all celebrating enduring relationships, providing a counterpoint to the waves of melancholy. But

what makes Big Whiskey & the GrooGrux King the Dave Matthews Band's richest, and quite possibly best, album

is the implicit message that all the love and loss can be felt and shared through the music, that the

creation of the music itself is the reason why they're here -- and that's not just a moving tribute to

LeRoi Moore, it's a reason for the band to keep moving on.



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Tracklist
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01. Grux
02. Shake Me Like a Monkey
03. Funny the Way It Is
04. Lying in the Hands of God
05. Why I Am
06. Dive In
07. Spaceman
08. Squirm
09. Alligator Pie
10. Seven
11. Time Bomb
12. Baby Blue
13. You & Me