Dave Matthews Band - Away From The World

Dave Matthews Band’s new CD was produced by Steve Lilywhite, who produced their first three cds as well as the unreleased Lilywhite Sessions that eventually became Busted Stuff. The new CD goes a bit back to the style of the first 3 CDs that Lilywhite produced. Broken Things is a nice start to the CD kicking in with a typical Dave style with the horns, strings, drums all predominate in it.

Second song Belly Belly Nice to me is a big funky and odd. It really doesn’t fit the style of what I would expect. Mercy has been released early to get tested as well as being played live for the past year. Pretty mellow, soft style but a nice blend to the CD. Gaucho as a nice mix of the guitar and violin slowly building up at the start and building the song up. A really nice one to have on this collection. A little electric guitar kicks in there as well.

Sweet is a nice little tune that kicks off with a nice acoustic sound and moved out to full band. I haven’t seen Dave Matthews Band in many years as he really seems to sound the same and plays the same tunes every time I attend. I used to really enjoy seeing him until there was a rash of young 13-16 year old girls yelling out the lyrics to every song at the shows and awfully out of tune. But getting back to this CD I like the style and the sound a bunch. The Riff is a sweet soulful tune and Belly Full is a nice acoustic tune that could be one of those nice tunes to throw on in the car as you are driving at night or just sitting and looking at the stars. Sort of Paul Simon like. Actually I would love to hear Paul record that one.

If Only is a nice back to the standard slow style DMB tune that you would hear off Under The Table or Crash. Rooftop gets a really funky feel to it, great beat and pretty cool. Snow Outside is a nice acoustic style mixing in the horns and drums to give it a nice feel throughout. There’s a nice slide guitar in there as part of the mix. The last song is called Drunken Soldier – you hears some guitar play at the beginning with low volume vocals that kicks into the typical jam sound of DMB. It is about a 10 minute tune with some nice instrumental parts as well as vocals. Nice finish to the CD.

This CD has a deluxe bonus version that has 3 live versions of Gaucho, Mercy and Sweet from the 2012 tour.

Dave Matthews Band is Carter Beauford (drums), Stefan Lessard (bass), Dave Matthews (vocals, guitar) and Boyd Tinsley (violin).

Track Listing:

1. Broken Things

2. Belly Belly Nice

3. Mercy

4. Gaucho

5. Sweet

6. The Riff

7. Belly Full

8. If Only

9. Rooftop

10. Snow Outside

11. Drunken Solider

12. Gaucho (Hartford, CT- 5.25.12)

13. Mercy (Bristow, VA-6.12.12)

14. Sweet (Cleveland, OH-6.3.12)