Recently, I was over at a friend’s place, and she (foolishly) let me pick the music. I was curious if I could sneak some Phish past the group, so I threw on “Tube”, and nobody seemed to object to its slinky groove. At least, not until the lyric “There’s a mummy in the cabinet!” caught a friend’s attention, and they said, “I’m sorry, what is this?” This is a recurring pattern. If I can ever get a discerning music listener to try Phish, the flagship act of the American jam band scene, they’ll often report that the jams are incredible. The instrumental songwriting and arranging are excellent. They just can’t get past the lyrics.
Historically, those who complain about Phish’s lyrics have a problem with their absurdism, such as songs where a mouse’s car gets snowed in (“Gumbo”), a narrator collects all of the prickly hairs off his love interest’s razor (“Weigh”), and a weasel gets a papercut on his nipple (“Fee”). As guitarist and lead vocalist Trey Anastasio has said, much of this silliness comes from the band’s early days when music was a means of goofing off and nobody expected to play Madison Square Garden.
But more recently, a lyrical critique of Phish has meant something different. As Anastasio has gotten older, sobered up, and lived through the deaths of beloved friends and his sister, his songwriting has gotten more sincere. While the band has always put out some sensitive songs (“Lifeboy”, “Wading in the Velvet Sea”), things took a turn for the new-age in 2016 with “More”, a track in which Trey Anastasio insisted that he was “pulsating with love and light.” The titles of some recent Phish tunes suggest a general theme: “Set Your Soul Free”, “Come Together”, “Soul Planet”, “Everything’s Right”, and so on.
While I respect Anastasio’s attempt to spread positive messages through his songwriting, this new lyrical approach is often not specific enough to get deeper than banal platitudes. Think Coldplay after Viva La Vida. As a result, Evolve, Phish’s latest studio album, features their signature tight instrumentals and improvisational interplay but is lyrically hollow. That isn’t a minor complaint; the improvisation has to do double duty to inspire the listener where the words could not.
A telling example is “A Wave of Hope”, a pandemic-era tune that vaguely promises that “this too shall pass”. The song is run by a gritty riff and an infectious chorus, and when it takes off into a jam, Phish come alive. Drummer Jon Fishman is everywhere at once, while bassist Mike Gordon is exploratory yet solid. They both support Anastasio and keyboardist Page McConnell in dramatic but tasteful solos. It is riveting, exciting stuff that truly speaks to the soul in ways that the lyrics simply don’t.
Similarly, the album opener, “Hey Stranger”, is built on a fun riff, but “Hey stranger / Come crash for a minute” is hard to take seriously. Elsewhere, “Pillow Jets” has a righteous jam that everybody should hear at least once, but an uninspired melody and loose messianic imagery drag down the first three minutes. Meanwhile, Anastasio’s attempted vocal flair on “Monsters” can’t be supported by the repeated, simplistic refrain: “I wake up in my bed / With monsters in my head.”
However, a few tracks are strong across the board. “Oblivion” features a filthy groove that supports the entire track, which allows the improvisation to feel more like an extension of an already-good song rather than simply the good part. While the whole band excels here, Page McConnell’s synthesizers give “Oblivion” extra life, and the overall precision of the mix delivers a rendition of the song that is crisper than a live recording would be. The most consistent flaw with Phish studio albums – that the group’s improvisational prowess is not adequately captured – is not once felt on Evolve.
Two of the album’s bolder choices pay off: “Mercy” and “Lonely Trip” are more meditative tunes. Anastasio is praying rather than preaching. These are deeply affecting songs that are satisfying on both instrumental and lyrical levels. “Lonely Trip”, like many of the Evolve tracks that include longtime lyricist Tom Marshall (including “Oblivion” and the title track) is much stronger than those on which Anastasio wrote alone.
The verdict on Evolve is the verdict that so many have given Phish in the past: the instrumentals are fabulous, but the lyrics leave something to be desired. Still, something is compelling about a group of aging rockers turning to optimism and joy in their later work rather than contempt or nostalgia. But the band’s playing is the greater testament to these ideals: the telepathic interplay between instruments that has sustained the group for 40 years and is still audible on Evolve. When Phish do what they do best, they inspire the hope they desperately seek.