Widespread Panic: Ball : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Time was when southern rockers lived only to jam, swill beer and kick hippie ass. Nowadays, rednecks and freaks alike converge at corporate music festivals where the bands mix southern boogie and San Francisco jam rock. With their eleventh album, Ball, perennial Georgia jam band Widespread Panic find a reason to make it mellow. Losing founding member Michael Houser to cancer in 2002 has impacted the band, which trades in its extended jams for more introspective tunes that fall somewhere between Jimmy Buffett, Marshall Tucker Band and Grateful Dead. Many songs are mid-tempo, with vocals more important to the songs' structure than any instrumental wanking. Near the end Ball loosens up, "Meeting of the Waters" and "Monstrosity" hinting at the jam band glory of past albums. But even these excitable moments are tinged with a bittersweet lethargy.

KEN MICALLEF
(April 15, 2003)