Fresh Phish features flash, fundamentals December 22, 2002 - Worcester Telegram & Gazette by Scott McLennan Album Review - Round Room Phish, Round Room * * * While neither technically brilliant nor powerfully insightful, ''Round Room'' by Phish is the best thing the band has done in years. Quite simply, Phish remembered what it was with ''Round Room,'' a compact disc that officially ends the hiatus the band declared in October 2000. Phish's return to active duty also has it playing the Worcester Centrum Centre on Feb. 26. In going from a cult act of musical renegades to revered torchbearers of the jam-band scene, Phish lost a bit of itself. Leading up to the break, Phish played fairly uninspired concerts and released two lackluster CDs. It was as if the band tried on some ill-fitting musical guises in the name of growth as its environment grew around it. The best part of ''Round Room'' is the way it gets back to the basics of what made Phish so likable in the first place. There's a playful spirit infused in the lengthy 78-minute CD, with five of the 11 songs on ''Round Room'' devoted to the sort of epic group improvisations that first sparked the Phish legend.''Round Room'' represents the fruits of four days in October when guitarist Trey Anastasio, bass player Mike Gordon, drummer Jon Fishman and keyboard player Page McConnell set up their gear in a barn in Vermont and dug into a batch of songs written and rehearsed only weeks earlier. The rawness of the sessions served the project well, especially when the band cuts loose on the long and involved numbers. Whereas the previous two Phish studio albums, ''Farmhouse'' and ''The Story of the Ghost,'' seemed to be searching for things that just weren't to be had out of this quartet, ''Round Room'' strictly plays to the band's strengths. It also willingly acknowledges Phish's weaknesses. Mainly, Phish does not write jaw-droppingly brilliant songs. The band's stuff is quirky, amusing, fun, wry and heartfelt, but not particularly deep. Get over it. If you want deep, put on a Dylan record. With Phish you get to hear wonderfully played music from four guys who were lucky enough early on in their lives to realize that they had a pretty special chemistry. The sparks capable from that chemistry are evident on the opening number of ''Round Room.'' The song ''Pebbles and Marbles'' starts out with a couple of minutes of introductory jamming before moving into the song's main musical theme, and then it blasts off into an anthemic jam just crackling with energy. That song model reoccurs throughout ''Round Room.'' The formula works well because it taps into the strengths Phish displays in concert and tempers that with the precision afforded a studio recording. There are missteps on ''Round Room.'' The title track, for instance, is a goofy, Gordon-penned number that falls flat. And ''Mexican Cousin,'' Anastasio's ode to a tequila bender, is likewise disposable. But the positives outweigh the negatives. Gordon's other contribution to the mix, ''Mock Song,'' is a twisted bit of musical non sequitur that comes across like the rock 'n' roll version of a '''Zippy the Pinhead'' comic. And the Stonesy ''46 Days'' may be the rockingest thing Phish has ever committed to tape. THEMATIC PIECES The final movement of the album- a stretch of songs that begins with ''All of these Dreams'' and moves through ''Walls of the Cave,'' ''Thunderhead'' and ''Waves''-- hangs together as a nice thematic piece about searching for meaning at the brink of loss. Images of caves and the underground keep showing up in the songs, and the yearned-for light of knowledge seemingly arrives on the wings of a jam built from the curlicue communication of rat-a-tat drumming, piercing guitar licks, thick and pliable bass grooves and majestic cascades of piano. Phish may not be able to physically go back to the bars and small theaters it played in the early '90s, when its music first seemed like a prankster assault on the world of alternative rock. But the freshness and chaos heard in the spirit of those days is rekindled on ''Round Room.'' Copyright © 2002 Worcester Telegram & Gazette, Inc.