Come Tomorrow arrives six years after
Away from the World, by far the longest span of time separating albums in
Dave Matthews Band history. During those years,
DMB did what they always do: they toured every summer. This time, the group started chipping away at a new album, reuniting with many of the producers and engineers they worked with in the past.
Steve Lillywhite, who helmed
Away from the World, may be absent, but
Rob Cavallo, the producer behind
Big Whiskey & the GrooGrux King, is here, along with the R&B-savvy
Stand Up producer
Mark Batson and
John Algia, who worked with
DMB prior to their 1994 major-label debut,
Under the Table and Dreaming. This laundry list of collaborators may suggest there were an awful lot of cooks in the kitchen for
Come Tomorrow, yet the album is remarkably cohesive, representing a moody shift away from the settled sunniness of
Away from the World. Darkness is no stranger to
Matthews -- even his sunnier records have their share of meditative numbers -- but
Come Tomorrow is a cousin to
Some Devil and
Busted Stuff, two albums that appeared in the dawning years of the 21st century that found the singer/songwriter questioning his purpose after the first flush of success. On this collection of songs, a handful of which are nearly a decade old,
Matthews isn't quite as gloomy and unsettled as he was during the days after Y2K -- he throws in a handful of randy vamps and slow jams to puncture the mood -- but there's a sense that something is nagging at
Matthews. That unease binds
Come Tomorrow and is also articulated nicely by
Matthews himself, whose weathered vocals feel appropriate weary. This leathery singing is new for
DMB, as is the de facto absence of violinist
Boyd Tinsley, who departed the band during the completion of this record under a cloud of sexual misconduct allegations. Without
Tinsley or the late
LeRoi Moore,
Dave Matthews Band don't seem as loopy or rangy as they did in their prime, but this leaner sound suits a middle-aged
Matthews, who is comfortable in his skin yet restless in his mind. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
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