Dave Matthews Band - Before These Crowded Streets (1998)

The Dave Matthews Band moves its music forward by increments on Before These Crowded Streets. While the album offers more of the folkish melodies and vaguely internationalist rhythms that made this Charlottesville, Virginia, group a major record and concert draw, it also finds them adding new colorings to the mix. Alanis Morissette guests on two cuts, "Spoon" and the disc's first single, "Don't Drink the Water," and banjo whiz Bela Fleck sits in, too. More interesting, though, is the modernist string arrangement played by the Kronos Quartet on the driving "Halloween." Matthews's obvious hopes to lead something other than a jam band are at least partly fulfilled here; at the same time, Streets should keep his customers satisfied.--Rickey Wright

"Put your troubles down," Matthews croons in the 40-second opener "Pantala Nago Pampa." .... But the singer can't take his own advice.... [T]he bulk of Before These Crowded Streets feels morose and overlong, with most songs dawdling along for seven or eight minutes. In concert, the cumulative effect may well be ascension, but listening at home, what comes across is insularity, a party you're denied entry to. Cultists will eat this up ... [but] the rest of us will probably be left craving more meat and less sizzle. -- Spin