Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King is the Dave Matthews Band's first record since the death of saxophonist LeRoi Moore, whose jazzy riffs colored many of the band's more exploratory work. His departure is sorely missed, as the band goes in a slightly-new, more musclebound direction, but loses a lot of its depth.
Big Whiskey takes the electric leanings of DMB's second record, Crash, and adds a bit of the processed sound of their poppiest effort, Everyday. Sometimes it works well (the tricky, shifting "Spaceman" and the devil-hoedown stomp of "Alligator Pie"), but other times ("Dive In," "Seven") it sounds canned and hermetically sealed.
Producer Rob Cavallo said that in developing many of the album's songs, the band would "jam on a certain idea, but rather than jam for 12 hours on it, we'd jam for 12 minutes," taking grooves they liked and developing them into songs. And while it occasionally makes for a tasty little jam, it also makes for a few toss-offs.
Like many a jam band, DMB's songs frequently take on a slightly different character in concert, and much of Big Whiskey has that potential. But the band also used to craft some churning, potent studio records, and this particular GrooGrux King is missing a few jewels in the crown.
