It wouldn't seem that a solo album from
Dave Matthews
would be all that different from a
Dave Matthews Band
album, since he's not only the singer/songwriter/guitarist; he leads the band and gives it its very name. That assumption turns out to be incorrect, since
Some Devil
sounds and feels much different than any
DMB
effort. With
,
Matthews
has turned in a brooding, moody album that attempts to extend the breakthrough of
Busted Stuff
, which signaled a considerable leap forward for
as a songwriter and musician, finding him tackling darker territory. Here, he turns up the darkness even more, but loses the fluid musicality that came with
's loose-limbed jams. In a way, it's an attempt to shore up his credentials as a singer/songwriter, something that has always been overshadowed by his brood's status as
jam-band
favorites, and
certainly feels more at home among modern singer/songwriters from
John Mayer
to
Rufus Wainwright
than it does next to
the String Cheese Incident
. Even though he's cut a lot of fat off his songs, he still favors meandering to directness, which combined with the deliberately somber mood of the album means this often sounds like
Automatic for the People
as written and performed by
Sting
. The end results are a bit unwieldy, perhaps, and not always successful, but it is interesting and certainly different than a
record. Most importantly, even if it is a rather modest success,
does showcase a continued growth for
as a songwriter. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine