Customer Reviews

Rift

5 star:		(45)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Easily the most mature of all Phish studio efforts. The one CD I listen to over and over. I loved Picture of Nectar, but one gets the feeling that it was a specific effort to showcase the band's versatility in terms of various styles (Funk, bluegrass, jazz, etc). Rift, however, is a masterpiece that tells a story. Trey's music and Tom's lyrics are superb. The two best songs on the CD, It's Ice and The Wedge are so well crafted, I am still amazed. I feel I'm on a journey whenever I listen to Rift. The feel and emotion are undeniable, from the haunting and beautiftul Fast Enough For You to the frantic Rift and Maze. It's also nice to here Page do more singing. Let's face it, Trey is the creative force behind the band and his singing is the cornerstone of the vocal end of the sound, but Page has a certain finesse which should be featured much more. He sings It's Ice, the wonderful Silent in the Morning, and shares the lead on Rift, alternating with Trey in the superb title track. Whenever I here live tapes containing songs from Rift, most of them seem rushed, the vocals emotionless, and the guitar licks hurried and flat. I always return to the CD to hear the well defined instrumentation, harmonies, and emotion the live shows just don't capture. Phish as a live act is second to none, and I guess you really can't compare the studio work and the live performances because they are designed to work differently. The live, jam-oriented shows, reflect a true interraction between phish and the audience. No other live band has as close a bond with its fans. In terms of studio work, however, Rift is far and away Phish's best and most complete offering. I love the way the vocals are alternated during the chorus of It's Ice and at the end of Sparkle. For me the Ironic aspect of this album stems from the hardcore Phish fans used to the live shows, the groove, and those great jams. As a musician, I look for dynamics, unique twists, and tight, well defined playing. Rift as a studio work is the perfect example of this. If your're into the creative, experimental, long and fun jams, and overall mood and feel of a true community, go to a live phish show. Everyone should go to at least one in their lifetime, because you won't get that feeling from a studio release.

As I understand it, this was the first album where the band used a producer, and it shows. Rhythmically, they are the tightest band I have ever heard, and this, coupled with their obvious understanding of musical composition, is more pronounced by the enhanced production values. The title track draws you in with the everpresent counterplay between piano (Page McConnell) and guitar (Trey Anastasio), as usual puncuated by mystically obscure lyrical images: "I struggled with destiny up on the ledge/ And gasped when, defeated, he slipped off the edge." Every song on the album needs to be heard. From the whimsy of "Sparkle" and the enchanting blend of accoustic guitar and super-climactic electric rock in "My Friend, My Friend," to "Horse/Silent in the Morning," which closes the album leaving you emotionally satisfied and somewhat wistful. The album is so musically substantial that I often feel somewhat drained when it is over. But I listen to it again, and again, and again...

Approximately 4 years ago I heard Phish for the first time. I was unimpressed immediately. I felt betrayed that my friends would pick this God-awful jam-band over our usual playlist (Marley, Hendrix, the Doors, etc.) It seemed to me that this was music where the songs with no words lasted 14 minutes and the short ones with words made no sense whatsoever with no exceptions.(This isn't entirely inaccurate "Weigh" is crazy, but also incredibly funny in its randomness) The first Phish song that I ever heard was "Wedge." I was on the brink of getting into this song until I heard it for the millionth time. It started to get incredibly annoying! Then I heard "Lengthwise" (Both of them.) Again, not impressed. I was out. For three years I built a wall around myself. No Phish allowed. I would say things like "It's just a bunch of guys who think that they are the Grateful Dead or something." But over the last 4 years, with such a heavy saturation of Phish music, apparel, and jargon from all of my friends, and I do mean ALL OF MY FRIENDS, the wall began to erode. And within the last year I started to see why the Vermont quartet had interested my friends so much in previous years after hearing the songs "Mound" and "Rift" at a party. These songs have excellent lyricism and musicianship. Just from listening to these two songs my Phish prejudices came to an end. I came to the realization that Phish wasn't a Dead-clone at all. They have a sound entirely their own. Though very much in the spirit of the Dead, (Musical Experimentation, Long Jam Sessions, Endless Touring, etc.) Phish is not the Dead in any way (They just picked up the torch when Jerry died.) Things have now come full circle. I have realized that the entire album of "Rift" is meant to be listened to as a whole and songs shouldn't be skipped. (This will kill Phish for you as it did for me.) The song "Lengthwise" fits in to the entirety of the album and makes sense where it is. So, don't skip "Lengthwise" until you've heard the entire album at least once (It won't make any sense,) and don't listen to "Wedge" too much because it will get annoying and stuck in your head The whole album is quite an achievement in its continuation of a theme dealing with sleep and dreams. So just sit back, relax, and let yourself float downstream in the audible dream that is Phish's "Rift." (The first song on the album is called "Rift" and does sound a little like Widespread Panic but don't let this scare you away. It's an incredible album.)

Well, this album officially made me a Phish-head. I bought Billy Breathes before, and it was a great collection, don't get me wrong, but Rift blows it away completely. It is an elaborate concept album about a dream, from start to finish. The first two songs establish the situation, the last two the resolution, and everything in between the subject matter. Songs like "Sparkle", "My Friend, My Friend" and "Its Ice" perfectly establish the poignant but vague feel of a long dream. Other highlights are: "Mound" "Weigh" "That Horse" and "Silent in the Morning." Beautifully done.

When I bought this cd I had no clue what I was getting, I trusted a sales person who said that this was the best phish album that captured their best songs and styles in one. Boy was he right. This cd could not be a better phish cd to buy first. Studio Phish and live phish are very different musicly however this this is better than some of phish's live music. Although this cd lacks the long jamed out songs like found on "lawn boy" this cd playfully captures pre-writen music that I would be excited to here live. I love all the songs on this cd except for "lenghtwise" and "lenghtwise". I would highly recomen this cd to a newbe to phish or a old school phan.

"It's time I slink the baskets off this overburdened horse/ Sink my feet into the ground and set a different course" sings Trey Anastasio on the penultimate track on this amazing album, and in retrospect it was a very prophetic statement. This album represents Phish's last moment as an acid-giddy, wide-eyed, musically ambitious band with something to prove. Since then, Trey has dismissed this album as "unlistenable" because it was simply crammed with "too many ideas." But its abundance of compositional ideas is what makes RIFT my favorite record of theirs. Since then, their studio work has been getting more and more lazy creatively (or smoother and groovier, depending on your view), absorbing duller mainstream rock and idea-free whiteboy "funk" directions in the ensuing decade. (I'm only referring to their studio work, not the live experience which is still mind-blowing) But on RIFT, the band's gleefully skewed, wildly imaginative music flurries onto the listener like a million multicolored confettis on New Year's Eve. It manages to be simultaneously structured and open-ended, tightly composed and spontaneously volatile, frantically experimental and glowingly emotional, delivered with typical smile-and-wink humor and disarming sincerity. If JUNTA is the totally unclassifiable sound of a new band nuking musical norms, this music is the last of the fallout; the musical debris still smoking from the spectacular, fireworks-like detonation of that first record. From HOIST onward, they would begin to rebuild their vision in a more radio-friendly, less demanding mold.

Sure it's a concept album, but it's an very accessable concept album. With such clean production, Phish's virtuosity in performance stands out. And if the lyrics seem conventional, just pop in A Picture of Nectar next. Some say it's not a "first buy", but I disagree. From here the Phish neophyte can launch either forwards (Billy Breaths, Story of the Ghost) or backwards (A Picture of Nectar, etc.) and find continuity. A very satisfying listen.

As much as I like a Picture of Nectar, Rift remains as my favrote Phish cd. It's a really good cd to settle down to, especially after a long day at work, or when you come back from a party with a bunch of buddies. It leaves you drained yet satisfied after the cd is over. Some of Phish's best are on this album.

A lot of Phish-heads out there are going to tell you this is such a great album ... personally I burned out on Phish many, many years ago, and hadn't played their stuff for a long time. I just listened to this album again for the first time in probably ten years, and was reminded of something I read around '93 - an interview in which Trey reckoned that Rift was the first album where they really got things right.

I felt compelled to write this review after hearing phish's new, and presumably last studio album. It can't hold a candle to some of these older "gems" such as Rift. In fact, I welcome their retirement from touring because they have clearly lost it. Undermine is pop and the rest is filler. Do yourselves a favor and forget Undermine and the mildly pathetic Round Room and throw in Rift again. Their best album by far, and surprise, it really has no signature songs at all. This album takes you on a journey of a nights dreams by an active thinker who clearly has much going on inside his noggin. Now, this band made its mark onstage, and their studio efforts have been pushed aside by the longing for the live stuff by the fan base. Yet, this release shows their true ability to play/write in many diverse forms as they take different paths and everyone is involved as senor trey does not dominate here. Highlights include It's Ice, My Friend2, and Horse->Silent in the Morning. Some shrug off this album as a silly, experimental, copncept album with no redeeming value. Its flow is fantastic, the lyrics are the BEST phish/marshall have ever churned out, and the tunes, while not "jammed" out on the album, leave you drooling for them when the boys come into town.