Phish - Billy Breathes

I was waiting in the Felix office and leapt when this CD was offered. This was the first point at which I was worried. No one else wanted to even touch the box. I persevered and listened to the whole album.

Some albums are bad, some are good, but this is just plain forgettable, background music at its worst. The musical style moves from sad piano rock to attempted trip hop reworkings of Pink Floyd and even these do not save the album.

The singer sounds tired, with only half a lung, the guitars sound as if someone is gradually filing away the strings and the pianist sounds as if he is playing with his feet, and I’m sure he’s wearing size 32 Doc Martens. This CD is not at the standard I had expected after the Phish song I had heard the other day, which was suprisingly quite good. However these ‘tracks of pain’ certainly don’t slice the chives, and I sincerely hope that they never make an album like this again. Ever.(2)

Bill