This album doesn't immediately grab one's attention. On first listen, its songs mostly pass on by in ways that simply didn't happen on many of the group's earlier records.

The claws found on this effort--and they are there--take some time to dig deep. Despite the addition of electric guitars--something that's been missing on much of the band's output, both live and in the studio--"Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King" is perhaps the Dave Matthews Band [ tickets ]s' most subtle record to date.

The first half of the album is decidedly down-tempo, weirdly synthetic in sound and a bit too sleek for a band that built its reputation on the live show. That includes the album's first single, "Funny the Way It Is," a tune that has more sheen on it than a newly polished Lincoln. Indeed, it's hard to imagine that producer Rob Cavallo, a guy who helped sharpen the edge on Green Day and My Chemical Romance releases, had anything to do with the first seven tracks.

The mood changes with the raucous "Alligator Pie (Cockadile)," a Bayou brother to DMB's other Louisiana-flavored offerings like "Corn Bread," and the tremendously fierce "Time Bomb," which explodes in a fashion that might shock those who mockingly refer to the group as the "Dave Matthews Bland."

What ties this whole offering together, and makes it such a worthy addition to the band's canon, are Matthews' lyrics. Overall, the words are quite meditative and, well, medicinal.

This is a band still mourning the loss of original member and saxophonist LeRoi Moore, who died last year from complications resulting from an off-road vehicle crash. To fully "get" this album, one needs to know where the band was coming from in making it--and that's a place of grief, but also a spot that apparently found the musicians trembling over, then embracing, their own mortality.