Everyday Dave Matthews Band RCA, 2001 Buy it online Tracks 1: I Did It 2: When The World Ends 3: The Space Between 4: Dreams Of Our Fathers 5: So Right 6: If I Had It All 7: What You Are 8: Angel 9: Fool To Think 10: Sleep To Dream Her 11: Mother Father 12: Everyday Reviewed by David Middleton	I'm mixing up a bunch of magic stuff / A magic mushroom cloud of care / A potion that will rock the boat will rock / Make a bomb of love and blow it up This verse launches the punchy first song "I Did It" from Dave Matthews Band's fourth release Everyday. Matthews keeps this promise all through the album by creating a satisfying concoction of hot rock chops, jazzy licks, folk and blues riffs blended into a musically tight and instrumentally complex and prolific whole. Mostly shying away from typical 4/4 rock time signatures and predictable chord changes, Matthews keeps things interesting, challenging the listener with intricate and more tightly focused instrumentation than has been heard on his earlier albums while still keeping the eclectic sound Matthews' fans have come to appreciate and expect. While critics have said that Matthews songs often lack radio friendly hooks, Everyday creates something that, while not hook laden, never fails to get me singing along or playing a little air guitar with the more interesting solos. Everyday never suffers from the scarcity of musical lures, in fact the album is far superior simply because Matthews does not weigh his compositions down with sugarcoated chords or emotionally preposterous lyrics, relying instead on music that is both aurally and emotionally challenging. That is not to say that Everyday is full of earnest significance and sober messages. In fact Matthews and band mates Carter Beauford, Stefan Lessard, LeRoi Moore and Boyd Tinsley sound as if they are having way too much fun and few regrets. Remorse and repentance are distant thoughts on Everyday but neither does it have the pumping-fist-in the-air-party-on-'till-you-puke-dude attitude. Everyday is filled with music that runs the range between hard rocking and sweetly intense. Songs on the first half of the album like "When The World Ends," "Dreams Of Our Fathers" and "So Right" (Roll uptown to midnight / Then roll on downtown till it's light / Because tomorrow we may die) undeniably support an attitude of: Let's enjoy ourselves thoroughly in the present -- past and future are just the anchors to our ambitions. The album's second half is tempered with more thoughtful conviction, with tracks like "What You Are," "Sleep To Dream Her" and -- with Carlos Santana on guitar -- the Latin flavored "Mother Father:" Mother Father please explain to me / Why a world so full of mystery / A place so bitter and still so sweet / So beautiful and yet so full of sad sad / Mother Father please explain to me Why forests march to deserts be / While snow capped mountains melt away / What do we tell our babies / What do we say / Mother father please explain to me / How a man who rocks his child to sleep / Yet pulls the trigger on his brother's heart / He digs a hole right to the middle of a storm of hatred / Mother Father please explain to me How it could be so this world has come to be / A precious balance in between / Such cruelty and such kindness please please / Mother Father please explain to me Though there is a theme running through Everyday, it's hardly in your face and while life affirming messages permeate the album, they are far from preachy or overly heavy. Much has been said of Matthews' Peter Gabriel-like vocals, and it is sometimes hard to deny that Dave's raw, throaty delivery could not have been influenced by the former Genesis front man. Like Gabriel's, Matthews' voice possesses much of the same intimate intensity and unrelenting honesty that make even simple phrases of lyric vivid. Singing either with confidence on the gospel-tinged title track or vulnerability on the touching "If I Had It All" or with an almost laid back flippancy on "When The World Ends," Matthews proves that his voice is just another instrument to be bent to his whim. Everyday is one of those rare albums that I can listen to from beginning to end without having to skip a track or two to get to my favorites. The album is full of my favorites. Varied enough that each song can stand on its own but still thematically consistent as to give the listener a complete picture when listened to from beginning to end, Everyday is as perfect an album as I could hope for. | April 2001   David Middleton is the art director of Blue Coupe magazine.	Though there is a theme running through Everyday, it's hardly in your face and while life affirming messages permeate the album, they are far from preachy or overly heavy.