Phish Still Hooked On Retro Jamming February 5, 1993 - The Washington Post By Mike Joyce THE LOOPY yet literate Vermont-based pop-jazz-rock quartet known as Phish has made a career out of recycling everything under the sun, including themselves, so you didn't really expect them to change their ways on their new album "Rift," did you? If anything, Phish seems more content with the Phish niche, spinning tunes into long, flowing, Dead-like jams and repeating lyrics (or sometimes what passes for them) until they begin to echo in your ear. Sometimes the band paints itself into a corner, as on the endlessly revolving "Maze," only to eventually emerge unscathed, ready again for another go-around and a chance to evoke pop pleasures past. Small wonder one of the tunes on "Rift" is called "All Things Reconsidered." Produced by Muscle Shoalsmeister Barry Beckett, there's some revved-up honky-tonk on "Rift" and even some pedal steel guitar on "Fast Enough for You," but the band's gleeful instrumental melange is occasionally upstaged by its oddball lyrics, such as the Zappa-esque "Weigh": "I'd like to cut your head off so I could weigh it. Whaddya say? Five pounds? Six pounds? Seven pounds?" Article © 1993 The Washington Post