The Philadelphia Daily News

Review by Jonathan Takiff

DMB On Top: "If this is the last album I make, I hope it's the only album people listen to," shares Dave Matthews in the DVD documentary packed with the deluxe edition of "Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King" (RCA).

I pass that message along because, frankly, I agree with it. This set, years in the making and filled with special emotional gravitas, really jumped out and grabbed me.

It opens and closes with snippets of lyrical saxophone from DMB's LeRoi Moore, who passed away last August. Gulp. Also inspiring the guys - most obviously on the "water's rising"-themed "Alligator Pie" - parts were written and recorded in New Orleans, a city still tottering on the brink.

The album is filled with songs that muse about fate and human frailty, that tug at our collective empathy gene. "Funny the Way it Is" sets the yin/yang tone, musing about how one man is down when another is up, how somebody else's sad story "became your favorite song."

We hear it again in the driving dichotomies of "Why I Am" and the Led Zep/Middle Eastern-flavored "Squirm." Ironically, the track I bet you'll hear the most on the radio is the carnal-lusting, live-for-the-moment "Shake Me Like a Monkey." Ain't the music biz always that way?