Before These Crowded Streets

11 tracks including DON'T DRINK THE WATER. Drill hole into barcode. Scuffs on disc will not affect play - disc graded onlu GOOD. Includes Merchandise Volume 7 catalog. SM.

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