Phish - Farmhouse June 2, 2000 - The Orange County Register By Ben Werner Album Review - Farmhouse The prevailing logic is that the relatively short running times and catchy pop sheen of Phish's latest batch of tunes mean this is yet another attempt from the nation's leading jam band to cross over to the mainstream. Right. As if these guys needed more fans. Once you play a New Year's Eve show before a half-million people on a remote Indian reservation in the swampiest part of Florida, you don't go looking for the mainstream anymore. The mainstream either finds you or it doesn't. And the truth is, it isn't likely to catch up with Phish via Farmhouse, despite it being the band's most accessible and focused album yet. Put it this way: Should the Allman Brothers Band become as important as Carlos Santana in the coming months, this one might have a long-shot chance at cracking triple-A radio. At the same time, die-hard Phish-heads are apt to see these slices of Southern rock only as interesting frames that will later have hot-rods built on them in concert. So just who will Farmhouse appeal to? Probably the same people who didn't really hear the Grateful Dead until "Touch of Grey." People who love Americana rock but insist it come with as little psychedelic soloing as possible. Farmhouse provides that pleasing sound in abundance, with much credit due guitarist Trey Anastasio, who wrote or co-wrote the bulk of these songs. Typically Phish is a democratic unit, but while recording in Anastasio's studio, it was decided that he should have free rein. Rather than freak out on his fretboard, Anastasio steps back into a rhythmic mode, letting the tunes find their center before he busts them apart -- and when he does, as on the lively "Twist" or the vaguely funky "Gotta Jibboo," he's far more relaxed than before, often coming across with the nuance of Santana or Jerry Garcia at his best. It's hardly the greatest Phish album -- but, then, like the Dead, this lot isn't apt to ever make such a thing. You take what you can get, and this one is as good a starting point for newbies as any.