Customer Reviews

Plasma

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

My anticipation for Trey's first live CD outweighed my current satisfaction, though the CDs have much to offer.

First off, don't be lured by the "Small Axe" track. This version is INSTRUMENTAL, short (3:23) and really cheesy. Having seen Trey sing "Mellow Mood" with Phish and loved it, this Marley cover is a HUGE disappointment!

On the up-side, disc 2 has some stellar jamming, including a 23-minute "Night Speaks to a Woman" and a fun "Simple Twist Up Dave". "Inner Tube" deserves special mention as the CD's most frenetic jam session, which clocks in at ~22 minutes.

Disc 1 highlights for me include "Curlew's Call", "Plasma", "Mozambique", and the slow-motion, eerie "Every Story Ends in Stone". Frankly, I could take-or-leave the remaining disc 1 tracks (I love "First Tube", but have heard way too many times).

Overall, Plasma has superb sound quality and some typically-phenomenal Trey jamming. The "previously unreleased" songs are 1/2 great, and 1/2 kinda boring. I'm wondering if the upcoming tour on livephish.com might be more interesting...

Not a Phish Fan per se, only knew their stuff from the radio. I picked this CD up at Borders on a whim - the salesdude recommended it to me.

I have to say, it's pretty good stuff. Trey's voice is honestly a smidge weak (I don't claim to be a singer either), but dag nab - can he put together a Band or what!

Mozambique and Night Speaks To A Woman are two of my favorites on this CD - very creative and very much worth listening to repeatedly.

This one gets 4 stars from me, and that's saying a lot from someone who just picked it up by chance. I really enjoyed hearing the different styles of music here, and I have a newfound appreciation for Trey's music.

It's well worth getting, even if you are not a big Fan and just want to tune into some new good music you might not have ever listened to otherwise. You will be happy with this one!

a great cd by trey n the band, gotta disagree w/ the last review tho, the lyrics stick and its becuz of they're lyricist [tom marshall] that they do..

I wasn't overly interested in this release when it came out. Over time, my feelings about Trey's solo work have softened (while he started strong with his Letterman performance of Push On Till The Day, I was mostly indifferent to his first solo album) and I feel like his later solo work has started to achieve his personal vision of what his band should be.

Plasma was an odd release. I think it was mostly put out because he was excited about the project, and wanted a broader audience to hear how much fun it was. What's unusual about it is that it's so unbalanced. His band is generally great. The arrangements are very fun, there's some broader rhythmic exploration going on, and everyone seems to be having lots of fun. But there's a substantial weakness... and it's Trey. First, while Trey hasn't been noted for his singing, he's a solid singer, and actually has a very pleasing sound. I love hearing singers who approach songs the way that Trey does. Here, Trey sounds less confident than he usually does. There's another thing that stuck out to my ear, and it was Trey's tone.
He's hitting the notes, and he's playing tastefully. But the tone isn't right. It sounds too jagged, almost like his EQ was pushing his higher end more than his midrange.
This isn't a consistent thing, either. Some of the cuts sound just right, but some of them sound weirdly abrasive.
The highlight - at least for me - was Mozambique and Magilla. Both of them have great horn arrangements, and feature Trey sneaking in and out in the sort of supporting role that I think he's always wanted.
The lowlight is First Tube. I love the song to death, but this version didn't feel right. It felt a bit gritty, and more forced than it should. To be fair, I did like some of the additions to the drum work.

It's hardly a bad release, but it's not as great as it could be. I actually liked TAB at the TAB much more.

I had never heard of Phish [they are not very well known in Europe] but sometime ago I stumbled across a review of this CD. The descriptions made me curious and I decided to buy the CD virtually unheard. At first I quite liked what I heard, but the music started to grow on me and now "liking" is too weak an expression for me. I think the whole musical performance is fantastic, a kind of Santana meets Gil Evans. BUT and it is a big BUT, I find the singing quite weak. That makes me hesitate to give five stars. So it is going to be four stars, because for me five stars means that I have no hesitations whatsoever. In my mind it would have been an immaculate album if he had brought in a real good singer. He could have followed the example of Bill Wyman, another notoriously weak singer, who is having other guys doing most of the vocals in his band. Still very worthwhile to listen to.

If it came down to Plasma or his self-titled album I'd pick this anyday.

Trey Anastasio knew what he was doing when he released this album. The horn section alone is sick. He uses phunky bass riffs, really psychedelic guitar tracks, nice drumlines, and one of the best track selections from a tour that I've ever heard. He caught the highlights of the Trey tour. The first disk makes a cool transistion from song to song, pulling you into another demension with smooth sounds, finishing with Phish's "First Tube," an amazing ending for the cd. The second disk is by far the best four live tracks I've ever heard, hands down. When I first bought it I listened to it from disk 1 track 1 to disk 2 track 4. And I still can't skip a song.

If you're a [live] Phish fan and can hang with jams, I suggest this album. You can't go wrong.

This is yet another great album of Trey Anastasio. Simply perfect. It is typical Phish-like Jam Music that Trey enriches with all sorts of rythms you can imagine. Even a trumpet is used. Some stuff reminds you of Carlos Santana, something of some kind of Rumba/Salsa/Mexican-type good feeling music. Do not hesitate, run and buy it, you will not regret.

Incredible stuff, Trey is the master. Anything less than 5 stars is unacceptable.

I would 100% disagree with the last review about the lyrics part. Tom Marshall is a complete genius, comparable to Robert Hunter just in much differnt ways. This 2 disk cd set is an exelent compilation of live songs. Now that Phish had broken up, if you wish to continue with Anastasio's work than this cd is a must. The highlight of the cd in my opinion is the " Night Speaks to a Women" very clean jamming. Buy this CD you will thank yourself next time you are on your way to go see Trey