Search - Tribute to Phish :: Dub Tribute to Phish: High Neighbors

Audio sodomy

The Delite Rancher | Phoenix, Arizona | 09/19/2007

(1 out of 5 stars)

"You really have to be skeptical of any review that slams a product with one star. Typically, the reviewer has an irrational bias or unreasonable expectations. In this case, I love Phish and I'm a long time listener of dub music. Beyond this, I found a place in my heart for the bluegrass and string quartet tributes to Phish. All that written, "High Neighbors: Dub Tribute to Phish" is awful for two reasons. First, it fails as a Phish tribute. The songs are unrecognizable. With few exceptions, there's little evidence that the musicians who played this music ever listened to the originals or read related sheet music. Each track consists of loose, generic jams. There was no effort to have the vast majority of these tracks even resemble the originals. Considering this point, it may be absurd to wonder why reggae infused 'Harry Hood' was omitted. Second, "High Neighbors" is musically mediocre. Including the arrangements, improvisation and production, every element of this effort is uninspiring and uncompelling. I'm willing to accept that despite being a lousy tribute, this could have been great music for its own sake. Instead, this is just pop reggae with cheesy, amateur sounding effects thrown in for impact. For such a project, most Phish listeners would want a roots dub/reggae tribute and not a bland pop effort played by humdrum studio musicians. As a testament to the hasty corporate effort, the back of the CD case features a write-up that's riddled with grammatical errors. Not surprisingly, this musical travesty was pimped by Vitamin Records, the company that's done hundreds of string quartet, dub, swing, piano, electronic and industrial tributes. While I enjoy a few of these recordings, "High Neighbors: Dub Tribute to Phish" is to be avoided at all costs. The listener would do well to remember that if this project featured any vocals, they would sing "bag it, tag it, sell it at the CD store.""