After a long awaited four years for Dave Matthews Band fans, a new studio album is coming.

April 14th is the set release date for the still untitled album by Dave Matthews Band and they will be celebrating it with a Madison Square Garden show that night.  Rob Cavallo has produced a number of successful albums for artists including Green Day, the Goo Goo Dolls, and My Chemical Romance.  For fans, this seems like an unlikely pairing but these road warriors and jam artists could use an editor to harness their creative energies into a controlled sound.  Personally, I think Mark Batson did them a disservice with Stand Up, their last studio album released in 2005.  His R&B background led to a over-produced body of work that didn’t quite sound like the Dave Matthews Band–the crime of it all.  Hopefully Cavallo’s background in “harder” pop-rock (if there is such a thing) will lead to positive innovation. This quote from Rob Cavallo only breeds good feelings and hope for me:

We are part shrink and part music guru and part technologist, part musical historian, part coach, part know-it all

Now, there will be an absent sound from the band on this upcoming 2009 album.  LeRoi Moore, founding member, talented saxophonist, and expert arranger, passed away on August 19th, 2008, of complications from an earlier ATV accident.  He was 46.  Jeff Coffin will be attempting to fill his venerable shoes.  To Coffin’s credit, I heard him perform with the band on 2008 down in San Diego and he did a spectacular job, especially under the circumstances.  He earned a name for himself with Bela Fleck and the Flecktones and absolutely deserves credit in his own right as a tremendous experimental jazz musician who has done much for his craft.

So now we fans wait patiently, enjoying the music we have from these modern legends.

Dave Matthews Band ~ Don\’t Drink The Water

-Kim a.k.a Lady Downstairs

Coming to ya from “The Backseat”