Here Comes the Bride

by Stephen Thomas ErlewineThe Spin Doctors' career trajectory is a bit frightening. One moment, they were selling millions of records, the next they were dropped from a major label and missing their lead guitarist. It's enough to send chills down the spine of any budding musician, but imagine how difficult it was for the Doctors. They may have been the first jam band to have a big hit, but the end result of that was that they were not taken seriously, even though they were among the first bands of the entire genre. Not that you could tell that by Here Comes the Bride, the group's fourth album and first effort for Universal. Continuing a bit of a yo-yo pattern in their releases, the group returns to full-fledged jams on much of the record, adding a few pop tunes here and there. The end result is muddled and tired, as if the band was playing catch-up to bands like Blues Traveller -- who were peers, after all, not influences. There are moments that catch fire, largely due to the addition of Ivan Neville on keyboards, but the pop tunes aren't particularly noteworthy and the jams fall flat on record, never achieving the weird groove they do in concert. Here Comes the Bride ultimately is a respectable attempt at a comeback, but unfortunately, it's isn't entirely successful.