Mellowing in the Sugar Shack

So over the last couple of days/weeks I’ve been doing a lot of listening of Phish Summer tour and to the new effort from the boys, Joy. I have to say, as studio albums go, this one is up there for me from Phish. No, it doesn’t have the eccentric ridiculous craziness of the early stuff, but I have accepted that that’ll never really happen again, at least not in the same type of way.

The album is just ridiculously solid. A wonderful effort and just what I think we needed to hear from Phish after their earlier post hiatus records. Hearing the songs on summer tour, then hearing them on the album, makes me think it might even be the first Phish album that the boys won’t be able to pull off and make sound as good live as they do on the album. A rare problem for Phish. I sure many will disagree, but that’s my opinion and this is the internet so no arguments…

Which brings me to my favorite track on the album. Sugar Shack. What a fantastic, quirky, crazy, different sound this song has. I love it. It’s a whole different direction and I defy anyone to name me a song that’s got a sound quite like it. Quite clearly a Mike song, it’s the only one on the album that feels slightly out of place, yet strangely at home at the same time…I think that actually describes mike very well also.

There’s such tremendous live potential in the album and I can’t wait to see what they do with it in the fall and winter.

Now…if they could just nail Sugar Shack live.