Inside In - Mike Gordon August 29, 2003 - Jambands Music Magazine By Chris Gardner Album Review - Inside In Despite fourteen guest musicians, Inside In is all Cactus. A unity prevails even though much of the material has piled up over the years. It is very much a studio album -- or, rather, a home studio album. These tracks are settled and revisited, a foundation tinkered with and tinkered with. It's a headphone album, the depth and layers revealing themselves slowly. It requires attention, slowly fading into the background when denied such and paying off when indulged. Most of the tracks build themselves around the trio of Mike, Gordon Stone on pedal steel, and drummer Russ Lawton. The trio needs little embellishment, delivering the heart of the album with but a little help from James Harvey on keys. Lawton is predictably sharp, but it is Stone's steel that shapes this slippery, often downright elusive album. Mike admits an obsession with the instrument, and he's not hiding it here. Stone brings the sweeping grandeur to the deep-throated "Beltless Buckler", the spook to "Outside Out," and the slink to "Soul Food Man," the album's most Phish-ready tune and arguably its best. "Take Me Out," the other contender, opens and closes the door. Jon Fishman lays the beats on the first-version intro, and Mike fills all the holes - guitar, keys, lead and harmony vocals, and bass. It's a beautiful opener, ebbing out and rolling back again, striking with a confessional clarity, eschewing the non-sequitur paradoxes that riddle the remainder of the album. Were it not for the convincing delivery, the open and straightforward lyrics ("There's nothing left inside me that feels like home") would seem out of character from a man more apt to explore surreal tales of aliens in small towns, piles of facial shavings, and house plants. Here, it feels more like a man stepping out from behind the red curtain of a Magritte painting or moving the green apple away from his face. I don't know where this belongs in the Phish canon, and I don't know that it matters. Inside In contains coherent moments of blissful drift, leadening groove, and baffling contradiction bookended by plain-faced revelation. That's not to mention Col. Bruce and the looming threat of vomit. That's more than enough. Review © 2003 Jambands Music Magazine