Phish in the Stream: Hear the Band’s New LP ‘Fuego’
After teasing their new studio album, Fuego, with various stand-alone tracks, jam-band icons Phish have shared their new LP in its entirety over at NPR. In keeping with the band’s eclectic style, the 10-track release, out June 24th, features plenty of instrumental firepower – blending the loose, improvisational energy of their stage show with concise, structured songs.
In recent weeks, Phish shared the funky “555,” the sultry, Latin-tinged “Waiting All Night” and the dramatic “The Line.” And though Phish fans have already heard a great deal of Fuego, some of the previously unshared tracks are highlights on the LP. “Devotion to a Dream” is a Southern-rock stunner built on gospel piano and a Trey Anastasio guitar solo channeling Dickey Betts. “Winterqueen” excels at sparse, dreamy psychedelia. And the opening “Fuego” is a wild, nine-minute summation of the band’s strengths, layering syncopated grooves (check Jon Fishman’s insane snare rolls) with melodic vocal sections and electric guitar fireworks.
Fuego was written and rehearsed at the band’s own Vermont hub, The Barn, and recorded late last year in Nashville with producer Bob Ezrin (Peter Gabriel, Pink Floyd). The band had previously debuted Fuego onstage at their Halloween show in Atlantic City, and part of their creative intent was to capture that communal, interactive live spirit on the album.
“We were going for the same experience I had when I saw them live,” Ezrin recently told Rolling Stone. “We’ve gone forward and backward at once,” Anastasio added. “We were alone in the room, like it used to be.”