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Earlier this year, as you may have heard, a Dave Matthews Band tour bus driver pleaded guilty to dumping 800 pounds of human waste through the grating of a bridge over the Chicago River — in the process, dousing a boatload of tourists passing underneath.

Listening to the band's new record, "Stand Up," it's easy to imagine how those tourists felt.

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Stand Up
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ROCK Dave Matthews Band "Stand Up." RCA. 14 tracks. Grade: D

"Stand Up" is obviously designed to be a change of direction, a Serious Album from rock's signature Everyman and his merry band of virtuosos. The tones are dark, the beats stiff. Several songs have a claustrophobic air, a direct contrast with the band's wide-open 1990s material and 2002's "Busted Stuff."

Artists are entitled to evolve, of course, but you have to wonder why the band would choose to play against its most obvious strengths, obscuring its world-class musicianship and suppressing its infectious sense of wide-eyed wonder. At its best, the DMB can make you want to dance and sing and kiss and wiggle your toes in the grass: "Celebrate we will," Matthews sang in 1996, " 'cause life is short but sweet for certain." Eight years later, things ain't so sweet. "Nobody's laughing now," he sings today. "God's grace lost and the devil is proud."

No fan of the war in Iraq, Matthews participated in last year's Vote for Change Tour. Now he's singing about "the man with the bomb in his hand" and imploring his listeners, in separate songs, to "wake up" and "stand up." In "You Might Die Trying," he empathizes with us for being afraid to start our own little revolutions. Depending on your willingness to be preached at by Dave Matthews, this is either empowering or condescending.

Matthews even finds a way to turn the love songs into storm clouds. "Steady As We Go" is a power-ballad about staying together in tough times. And "Hunger for the Great Light," which sounds suspiciously like an ode to oral sex, concludes with an ultra-serious string arrangement. Dude, please.

If we want serious music about love and leftism we already have Bright Eyes. What we need from Matthews, whether he likes it or not, is some levity.

— Nick Marino