Except for the group's name, which points a straight arrow at the leader, the Dave Matthews Band are poster children for communal values. They're not just integrated racially, but sonically, too; neither the violin, sax, nor drums holds the spotlight, and Matthews sticks to acoustic rather than electric guitar, the better not to overwhelm everyone else. If the DMB hadn't existed, Sesame Street would have had to invent them.
A whiteSouth African expatriate replanted in Charlottesville, Virginia, Matthews came by his taste for musical democracy honestly. Lyrically, 1994's multiplatinum Under the Table and Dreaming was bullish on egalitarianism: "Everybody's happy / Everybody's free / We'll keep the big door open / Everyone'll come around," Matthews sang, typically, in "Typical Situation." What kept the record from devolving into PC wallpaper (and made DMB more interesting than their H.O.R.D.E. fellow travelers) was Matthews's mannered vocals__somewhere between Steve Winwood and Roland Gift__and his knack for oddball imagery that certainly seemed to be about something other than its own oddness.
If Matthews's experience with apartheid made him love democracy, the new Crash suggests that his experience in the States has left him, along with the rest of us, skeptical about its long-term vitality. Having forsaken electric-guitar egotism, he's begun replacing it with an equally self-indulgent vocalese. And his lyrics have become at once more desolate and more elusive. Except for "Cry Freedom," a plea for justice in South Africa, and "Say Goodbye," requesting that a friend become a lover for one night, it's difficult to decipher what Matthews is getting at.
Musically, Crash again sports the shifting, attention-grabbing group dynamics that producer Steve Lillywhite foregrounds against the band's everyone-all-at-once philosophy. Violinist Boyd Tinsley's pizzicato playing adds particularly nice color and Leroi Moore's various saxes are multitracked for punchy effect. But though the group has a distinct sound, they need someone to show them where to go with it lest their jams deteriorate into noodling. Democracy or no, the Dave Matthews Band is called the Dave Matthews Band for a reason.