Trey Anastasio is a Perfectionist May 2, 2002 - The Richmond Times-Dispatch By Leigh Buckley Fountain Album Review - Trey Anastasio You'd never know it from his casual appearance and laid-back demeanor, but Trey Anastasio is a perfectionist. He always has been - from the mid-'80s, when he wrote elaborate, almost classical pieces for a fledgling Phish up to and including his new self-titled solo album. The album, which he prepared for by touring extensively last summer and the previous winter, is a slick and focused production with reams of additional musicians. From members of the Vermont Youth Orchestra to New Orleans trumpeter Nicholas Payton, the album features a huge variety of sound. The first three tracks, "Alive Again," "Cayman Review" and "Push On 'Til The Day" are essentially a set. All three feature infectious, bouncy grooves with lots of horns and fun, uplifting melody lines. Anastasio wrote complete horn charts for all of this material, and it shows. Perfect horn harmonies punctuate perfectly placed guitar breaks. Then the album gets a little moody and introspective with "Night Speaks to a Woman," "Flock of Words" and the dirgelike "At The Gazebo." In the midst of this is another beauty, "Driftin," which sounds a bit like a Hendrix composition akin to say, "Izabella" or "Rainy Day, Dream Away." A violin-laden instrumental reworking of Oysterhead's "Radon Balloon" is included, cheekily titled, "Ray Dawn Balloon," which is followed hard by the rollicking "Last Tube," which offers one of the coolest complex horn breaks ever put on record. This material is significantly more suited to the studio treatment than much of Anastasio's work with Phish. Indeed, many of these super-tight, timbre-rich tracks surpass the live versions. As a result, Anastasio has made a solid record that will age gracefully. A+ Each new release is graded from A (the best!) to F (try again).