Widespread Panic: Don't Tell The Band : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Widespread Panic have long been one of jam-rock's most dependable, down-to-earth outfits, a course they maintain on this move to the indie ranks. Don't Tell the Band, while less experimental than 1999's 'Til the Medicine Takes, retains that disc's offhand diversity and songwriting focus, taking the Georgia sextet out of its mid-tempo groove and into driving rock (the Stonesy "Give") and greasy funk ("Thought Sausage") before ending up on the Spanish coast of "Casa del Grillo." Widespread also slip some social commentary into the street-person tale "This Part of Town" (where John Bell sings "Sometimes it seems like all we have we have taken") and the rollicking ecology screed "Big Wooly Mammoth." Yet the band infuses everything from a punchy cover of fireHose's "Sometimes" to the folky "Old Joe" with a nonchalant spirit that makes songs born through hard roadwork feel as comfy as the back porch. As Bell sings in the latter tune, "Hope we live long and lucky."

PAUL ROBICHEAU
(June 18, 2001)