Phish: Lawn Boy July 14, 1997 - Nude as the News by Ben French Album Review - Lawn Boy Give this album credit where credit is due. I hate to be the first critic to admit it, but Lawn Boy stands as one of the '90s' most underrated albums. Loaded with bombastic ingenuity, it also stands as one of the era's most ambitious, difficult, and postively individual major label debuts. Of course, Phish's ambitious nature and the unrefined execution of this music isn't really what you would call ear candy. Most normal listeners are likely to shudder on first sampling of the ordered cacaphony that is Phish. The ridiculous lyrics. The complex jams. It instantly smacks of Frank Zappa and the Grateful Dead -- a combination that makes everyone but heavy pot smokers run for the hills. Still, I defy anyone to listen to "Reba" a hundred times and tell me it's not a fantastic work of music. The band stumbles through a light, nonsensical intro, and then winds its way through an intricate, three-dimensional transition riddled with interweaving guitar and piano lines. The final section, an extended crescendo guided perfectly by Trey Anastasio's shockingly beautiful guitar solo, is almost reason enough to drop out of society and become another Phish nomad. Almost. Despite the arresting grandeur of songs like "Reba," "Bathtub Gin" and "Split Open And Melt," the album still leaves a nasty residue in the ears. Phish can't help themselves from having too much (obnoxious) fun. Try the excruciatingly boring "Lawn Boy," or maybe the trite bluegrass romp "My Sweet One," and see if you can hold back the wince. In the album's closer, the band oddly offers up the short, semi-sweet "Bouncing Around the Room" as a pop treat for the women of the world able to make it through the entire album without shooting their hippy boyfriends. Still, the song is better pop then we're likely to hear on the radio....ever. And its impossible to dismiss any of the songs on Lawn Boy as "dumb," "irritating," or "way too fucking long" without recognizing the group's chutzpah for doing their own thing. With this set of nine songs, Phish single-handedly ushered in a new era of experimental roots rock, which the band members would then go on to dominate during the next ten years. No small achievment indeed.