Style: folk rock, pop rock
Label: RCA
Year: 2018
Home: n/a
Members: Dave Matthews ~ guitars/lead vocals
Carter Beauford ~ drums/vocals
Jeff Coffin, LeRoi Moore ~ saxophone
Stefan Lessard ~ bass
Tim Reynolds ~ electric guitar
Rashawn Ross ~ trumpet
Boyd Tinsley ~ violin
Additional: Brandi Carlile ~ b. vocals
Butch Taylor, Mark Batson ~ piano
Buddy Strong ~ organ
Rob Cavallo ~ keyboard/organ
Jerry Hey ~ horns
David Campbell ~ strings
I spun Under The Table & Dreaming endlessly when it was released. I loved that album from the first single I heard. I loved the quirkiness of Dave's singing alongside the violins, percussion, overdubbed guitars & sax. The outcome was a wild & always surprising music that sounded like nothing I'd heard before, or actually since. The melody lines seemed to come from another planet & I wanted to go there. Yet, when the first single hit from the follow-up I was not hooked. When the next hit, I remained disinterested. I listened to parts of the next album with iffy response. They'd obviously stopped receiving signals from the great mysterious planet & instead started taking signals from the MTV audience on what would cause an album to hit the charts. The album felt slicker, more commercial & less zany. I never listened to anything else they did again. When I came across Come Tomorrow I decided to give them a listen. Many of the songs on the album have been in the band's live set for years, but I've never seen them live so I'm not familiar with anything coming into this. Supposedly there's a bunch of fan favorites there, but I'm obviously not a fan. Honestly, I'm not that big a fan of Dave solo, so when he appears as a guest vocalist with someone I am disinterested. The DMB was for me not about Dave, but about this vibrant group that turned his songs into a cosmic jukebox. His voice is just one quirky instrument, a bit grating on its own, but in the team setting a great unique asset. This means Come Tomorrow ... was a difficult listen & one where fans in my same boat should avoid. This came off as a demo album of Dave with some tinkling behind him. The focus is all on him & all the other instruments are largely relegated to a role I felt was the equivalent of elevator music. Take away his vocals & nothing was zany. It wasn't even that slick or commercial. It just sounded like demos waiting to be taken to a new level that had more in common with a singer-songwriter's folk album where the lyrics are the focus not the music. To say I was under-whelmed is an over-statement. If these are fan hits that are great jams in concert I couldn't hear it. There was nothing here that seemed to have any desire to go into orbit on it own, or be taken into orbit as a jam. I remember the DMB being vibrant , but this comes out as tired, worn, uninspired. They've lost some musicians, but not bothered to fill in the gaps & thus the whole thing feels empty. The tinny guitar solo on "Samurai Cop (Oh Joy Begin)" was so bad I was wondering if they sent to the album to press before recording the real solo, as this strange thing has to be a place holder of where the solo is to be slotted in. As I was contemplating this mystery, "Can't Stop" came up with Dave doing his best Tom Waits impersonation. Yeah, leave that one to the shower at home. Or, maybe it was Ray Charles with the subdued horn line? Forgettable demoes, outtakes, B-sides is what I would label this album as if, if I hadn't read that it wasn't. Such collections either are great unheard albums or just just not be heard. Come tomorrow ... I won't be listening to another album by them. If I want to do that just remind me to stand in an elevator.
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