CD Review: Phish "Undermind" (Elektra)

It's all here. For their last album, Phish has taken everything that is good about their sound and, er, jammed it all onto one tasty platter.

Despite their jam-band label, Phish proves once and for all with "Undermind" that what they truly are is a classic-rock band, as influenced by Led Zeppelin as they are by The Grateful Dead and Frank Zappa.

Trey Anastasio's skillful guitar licks and drummer Jonathan Fishman's tight bashing are all over "Undermind," and, without question, the two rock. But better than any individual performances, it's the songs that make Phish's final au revoir such a pleasing collection. Trey and his mates are sentimental, silly, earthy and trippy.

On "Army of One," a lush, epic ballad, keyboardist Page McConnell's voice glimmers with remorse and insight. "I got no answer/But you got no call/I just can't compete/With the weight of it all," he mourns. Elsewhere, the tribal "Scents and Subtle Sounds," a throwback to the band's stage jamming, features the lines, "If you would stop and notice that we number every day/But how the many moments left uncounted slip away."

The influence of classic rock's heaviest hitters weaves through "Undermind" like the smell of patchouli at a rock festival. Of course, the impact of Jerry Garcia cannot be denied, especially on the title track, but Phish also offers wonderful folk pop with "The Connection," and echo-heavy psychedelia on "A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing." Some of these tracks do meander too long in the field, without any hooks, but generally the band keeps the focus on the task at hand.

As the curtain closes on two decades of immortal jamming, Phish and its final release leave ample proof that they are no one trick pony ... even if that trick served them so well all these years.

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