Phish, Round Room May 1, 2003 - Sensible Sound By Staff Album Review - Round Room There is a phenomenon in pop performance that I call the "studio trap." For some reason, no matter how great a live act a band is, someone gets it into their head--sometimes it's even the band--that the dulcet sheen of a studio with proper acoustics, a 64-track soundboard, and the opportunity to retake clinkers is the next step in the band's natural progression. The Grateful Dead often fell into it as did Little Feat and to a lesser extent the Allman Brothers. The Dead's studio efforts, with rare exceptions (Workingman's Dead, American Beauty, In The Dark), were routinely lackluster compared to their live recordings, and the band's place in rock history is, as it should be, a live act. Phish, the heirs apparent to the Dead, are an astounding live band, and they know it as their live issues dwarf the studio discs. Round Room is the studio trap incarnate. All the meandering quirks, tasty snippets of alien cultures, and unrehearsed surprises that dot their concert recordings--the stuff that makes `em great--are simply not here. Oh, Trey Anastasio and Page McConnell noodle on endlessly just like they do in concert, but the length is interminable, the direction directionless, and the effect numbing. Farmhouse was a gas. This one passes gas. Copyright © 2003 Sensible Sound