Dave Matthews Band Stand Up CD

Dave Matthews Band: Dave Matthews (vocals, guitar, piano); Carter Beauford (vocals, drums, percussion); Boyd Tinsley (violin, electric violin); LeRoi Moore (soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone); Stefan Lessard (bass guitar).
Additional personnel: Mark Batson (vocals, piano, Clavinet, organ, Wurlitzer organ, Mellotron, keyboards, Moog synthesizer, percussion); Butch Taylor (piano, Fender Rhodes piano, Wurlitzer piano, organ, keyboards, background vocals); Lee Grove (percussion).
The Dave Matthews Band decided to team up with a very different producer for Stand Up -- Mark Batson, who earned his reputation with modern R&B and hip-hop records by the likes of India Arie, Joe, Beyoncé, and Seal. This doesn't result in an extreme makeover but instead puts a gentle gloss on the band's sound that renders it sleek and muted. Batson produces the DMB as he would any other record -- by keeping the mixes relatively spare and open, cutting up the rhythms in the computer, and polishing it all so it glistens. It's much warmer than Glen Ballard's makeover on 2001's Everyday, even if some of the cuts here appear to be pieced together in the studio. Matthews pulls away from the introspection of both Busted Stuff and Some Devil, occasionally reviving the humor that spiked his earlier work. The resulting album may not be to everybody's taste -- some fans will surely miss the loose jams that characterized DMB's '90s work -- but it is an intriguing change of pace for the group. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Given the slew of live albums that clutter its discography, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that the Dave Matthews Band hasn't cut all that many studio albums. Just five in ten years, in fact (2003's Some Devil was a solo side project by Matthews), and two of those were made in the aftermath of the unreleased 2000 Steve Lillywhite sessions -- a set of heavily bootlegged recordings that most serious DMB fans consider among the group's strongest work. The brouhaha surrounding the Lillywhite recordings and, particularly, their polished, mannered Glen Ballard-produced 2001 substitute, Everyday, may not have affected the group's sales, but it sure wreaked havoc on the psyches of the band and its fans, who questioned the band's direction after Everyday. But all of that turmoil disguised a problem that the group faced: they still could captivate fans in concert, but as a recording unit, the Dave Matthews Band was having some serious problems figuring out where to go next. They pulled it together on Busted Stuff -- a de facto do over for the Lillywhite sessions that also functioned as a tidy apology for the Ballard debacle -- but that album was essentially a holding pattern, since the songs were older than those on Everyday, which makes 2005's Stand Up the first album of new material since that 2001 album, and it finds the band right back where it was after Before These Crowded Streets: the guys don't know what the hell to do next.
Five years ago, Matthews initially responded to that puzzle with a set of soul-searching songs, but he abandoned them in favor of a collaboration with Ballard, a producer so meticulous, each of his projects is given a similar sheen that's mainstream but not quite pop. Having tried that approach, DMB decided to team up with a very different producer this time around -- Mark Batson, who made his bones with modern R&B and hip-hop records by the likes of India Arie, Joe, Beyoncé, and Seal. This doesn't result in an extreme makeover -- which, quite frankly, would have been more interesting -- but instead a gentle gloss on the band's sound that renders it sleek, muted, and rather lifeless. Batson produces the DMB as he would any other record: he keeps the mixes relatively spare and open, cutting up the rhythms in the computer, polishing it all so it glistens. It may not be as robotic as Ballard's approach -- it's much warmer actually, even if all the emphasis is on the surface -- but it still doesn't play to the group's stRolling Stone (pp.73-74) - 3.5 stars out of 5 - "[T]here's lots of enlightened riff-rock and splashes of color....The band's singular groove is as self-sustaining as ever..."
Entertainment Weekly (No. 819, p.84) - "[T]he disc hopscotches among a dizzying array of sounds and approaches..." - Grade: A-
Mojo (Publisher) (p.119) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[N]ow they're changing...to folk-funk/hardcore-gospel! The fundamental is the intimacy gathered around Matthews' new frontporch growl."