AR: Undermind

Phish - Undermind (2004)

Yeck. The phrase "Phish 2004" is one of those ugly things that I don't like hearing. Like "Yep, you've torn your second ACL," "Proposition 8 has passed,"or "2003 NLCS Game 6."

"What are 'Things that make me vomit?', Alex?"

2004 was the year Phish called it quits, but it's worse than that - the whole year was a descent into badness, with the band stumbling out to some lackluster shows, Trey playing an odd-sounding, compressor-less guitar, and a general sense that the Beast had outgrown itself and was dying of dino-cancer. Trey and Page announced in May that the band was going on indefinite hiatus / quitting for good, so the entire summer had a damper on it, a gutsick feeling. It culminated in the do-not-tell-me-otherwise worst performance of Phish's career in their closing shows at the flooded, traffic-bound, muddy travesty of a send-off that was Coventry. I listened to those shows in simulcast from home on my computer and my memory is that they were TERRIBLE - missed notes, flat energy, out of tune instruments, hellacious, embarrassing incompetence. I think you get the point; 2004 was DARK TIMES. And I wasn't exactly having a swimming go of it either - I had indeed torn my second ACL in the winter of that year and was still mired in the misery of med school, leaving me with studying, a reconstructive surgery, PT, no Ultimate, and nary a quality Phish moment to save the day* as the burning memories of MMIV. As you might anticipate, the cover of Undermind is associated with all the negative feelings of that particular period, and so out of the gate I'm not exactly going to be in love with the thing - the band's breakup announcement preceded the disc's release by a month or so, and I remember tearing the plastic wrap off the CD case with an already dejected air.

* - To be fair, I did catch a pair of entertaining if not musically stellar shows on 8.10 and 8.11 in Mannsfield, MA. Among other things, Trey stopped the show during the second night to poll the band on whether Fishman tunes (ridiculous numbers that feature the drummer's awful lead vocals and vacuum solos) were show-makers or breakers. Mike TPB Gordon replied, "On a scale of two to three, I give it a three." Priceless.

Well, that's not really fair - it sounds like I'm judging a studio album for the sad mayhem that surrounded it and not on its own merit. Well, let's see. Undermind, unlike its predecessor Round Room, was written / conceived / released in more typically Phishy fashion in part - as I mentioned in the Joy review, the seeming "right way" for a Phish album to come out was to have the songs worked on the road and then recorded, or at least showcased live before the album version came out. About half the tunes on Undermind had debuted the previous summer / fall, but - and this is a sign of the ungood to come - they didn't really excite me AT ALL when I heard them on the first iteration. They in fact sounded like the work of a band that had hit the creative wall, churning out something borderline average-adult contemporary, or maybe even formulaic in the simple-jam-vehicle rut that peppered the lesser moments of Farmhouse. And the ones that didn't fit that mold were slow, saccharine ballads that belonged nowhere near a Phish stage - I was interested to see if they would hold up on disc (with string embellishment and hopefully cleaner guitar and such), but the consensus in the summer of '03 was that, for example, "Secret Smile" was good only as a time holder for the listener to go grab a beer. So another strike against Undermind was that the known new material was lackluster, and the thought of music that is lackluster live performed in the not-typically-Phish's-strong-suit studio setting did not exactly inspire high expectations.

The nice surprise, then, of Undermind was that the newest of the new songs - i.e., the ones that had not been showcased yet - fit a consistent solid pop mode that breathed some peppy life into the album. The title track is a funky upbeat word-game number that hits a sweet pop stride in its easily-extended saunter. It's a breezy jam out that also crackles with rhythm. "The Connection" is simple, bright, acoustic-driven bliss - the tune has just a touch of sadness that lends itself to some nostalgic reflection in the midst of the inevitable hippie-twirling that would accompany it. "Nothing" is similar, speeding out of a tape effect into a ride-along bubbly riff, giving the lymbic equivalent of holding your hand out a car window as you zip through the auto-created wind. This trio of songs, spread across the disc, are the undoubted highlights for me - all smooth, all beaming, all nice craft that showed the mature songwriting potential of Phish rather than its proclivity to fall back on skeletal songs that permit later improv art. Phish also pulls off a neat trick with an ominous intro-version take of "Scents and Subtle Sounds," a mysterious little ditty that opens the disc and seems to match the original tune in lyrics only. The versions bookend the album (more or less), making for some neat album structure if nothing else.

The rest of the new cracks are a mixed bag. "Crowd Control" also tries that bright pop path, but stumbles severely on its "The time has come for changes / Do something or I will" sentiment. It's a quasi-political statement, maybe a joke, but regardless, it falls flat. "Maggie's Revenge" is a mundane noise-fest in the middle of the disc born of a jam; it's nowhere near as menacing as it pretends to be. "Access Me" is a decent enough Mike goof-tune, though not as good as his own Inside-In solo work, and "Tomorrow's Song" is an oblique "Graceland" homage that skitters by repeating lines over and over, coming off as toss-off filler. "Grind," actually not a new song but an a capella reworking of an old tune, fares a little better, functioning as a silly barbershop close to the disc. It's a novelty bit, though, and not the sort of the thing an album should rest on.

Ah, but then there are those already-been-played tunes. Of them, "Scents and Subtle Sounds" is the best rehash, bringing explosive energy to the version played in the summer of '03 and providing the middle of this disc with some fire. The opening descending licks and transition to the opening verse are genuinely hair-raising, as is the ensuing well-composed run - this is more of a composed song that has a space for jamming than a tune for which th esole purpose is to be a jam key. "A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing" is solid here if not specacular - the improv within is quite firey, but its murky psychedelic case just doesn't excite me that much. This one, in the summer of '04, became quite the stunner, but here the composed sections fall a little flat - yet another tick for the "you have to hear them live to get them" column.

From there, things crash badly. "Army of One" is an overly strained, melodramatic piano ballad from Page that comes across super-cheesy in concert and only comes off marginally better here. "Secret Smile" is improved somewhat over it's grab-a-draft concert status by added strings, but it's still a too-slow, whisper-sung ballad that teeters on mundane. This is not Trey's best vocal register, and while the instrumentation is quite pretty, it doesn't cohere very well. Finally, "Two Versions of Me," a mid-tempo ballad-rocker - I guess - marginally improves the god-awful concert version, but remains annoying as all hell. It's got an incredibly clumsy lyric / vocal part, and ends on a counting down segment that causes me to reach for the temple-stabbing fork. It's bad - sappy, too earnest, and fairly repetitive taboot.

There's an echo of other break-up albums here - songs are more obviously "Page-," "Mike-" or especially "Trey-" tunes than ever before. The awkwardness of a loss of team-conceived ideas is apparent. And they don't work well this way - the magic of Phish quite plainly lies in its interaction, and in 2004, this didn't seem to function as well. That may be an overly simplistic take - I've watched the making-of DVD that came with this disc, and there aren't obvious signs that the band isn't getting along or that Yoko's sitting on Mike's amp or anything. But Undermind, like Round Room, is messier, more frayed and fraught with missteps than the albums from before the first hiatus. It has ended up being a sad monument to the near-demise of my favorite band, and that combined with the large amount of ho-hum and outright bad music* on it keep it out of my player. Don't get me wrong - the gems I mentioned are just that, and it's not like Phish suddenly forgot how to play their instruments. But calling this purple blemish solid would, you know, make me want to throw up.

* - Okay, I may be exaggerating. But it's bad relative to their other output, blah blah blah the usual.

Status: Not Recommended
Nyet's Fave: "The Connection"

ADDENDUM: But wait - that was "near-demise!" The coda to the sad tale of Undermind is that the "permanent hiatus" improbably ended, and things are clicking once again. And yes, I'm just as happy about it now as I was in September. I know, I know, shut up already! Sorry. The other nice thing is that some of these Undermind tunes, my favorites in particular, didn't really get played much in 2004 if at all. So they are up for reinterpretation in '09 and '10 and beyond in a big way. There's hope yet! They've only been dusted off a handful of times thus far, but e.g., the 11.29 "Undermind" absolutely COOKED. So don't write off this work completely - just hope that the next time I catch a show, they don't play "Two Versions" or "Army." UGH.

ADDENDUM II: And I neglected to mention ... you gave your purported last album a cover featuring the four faces of the band in isolate? Boo-urns.