Photo by Ebru Yildiz

Vampire Weekend's Chris Tomson has reviewed the latest Phish album for The Talkhouse Music, the website where musicians write about other musicians. It's an enthusiastic take that lauds the jam band's latest accomplishments while still acknowledging that they might not be for everyone.

As he writes:

If you are wary of too many guitar solos, you’re getting hit with a ten-minute punch to the dome straight out the gate; if you are excited for a lot of guitar solos, you’re blissfully rolling along with a ten-minute opening jam that switches tempos and grooves on a dime. If you love lyrics like “The Prince of Silence walks below/inside a cave of ice and snow,” you get them; if you hate lyrics like “The Prince of Silence walks below/inside a cave of ice and snow,” you also get them. And so forth.

Wary of his credentials? He addresses that in the first paragraph:

I used to be obsessed with Phish. I once responded to a $1000 cash offer for my ticket to their NYE ’02 show with a terse yet decisive, “No fucking way, bro.” I once drove 12 hours to see a weekend of Phish shows in northern Maine and competed in the attendant Runaway Jim 5K for a chance to get onstage. I still know what YEM, PYITE, TMWSIY and DWD are acronyms for and who Jeff Holdsworth is. I’ve seen 25-30 Phish shows in the last 15 years. And, to a lot of people, that still makes me a newbie who doesn’t know shit.

Most poignantly, he addresses the stereotypes that have certainly kept people away from the band:

While a lot of Phish fans do not conform to the stereotypes that are the anathema of cool for young, urban, liberal, internet hipsterdom, many in fact do. HACKY-SACK AND FRISBEES. WHITE PERSON DREADLOCKS/TRUSTAFARIANS. KICKING A DOOB WHILE DANCING WITH A HULA HOOP AROUND YOUR WAIST. This is scary stuff, people. To dismiss an artist because of such window dressing is bullshit, I think, but it still occurs. It certainly influences attitudes towards the band itself and how people approach its music. Do they have long songs? Yes. Are they hippies with synthesizers? No. As evidenced in their late-’90s-era documentary Bittersweet Motel (from director Todd Phillips, the man who brought you all three The Hangovers!), Phish’s intrinsic Phishiness is something the band has struggled both to get away from and embrace, often simultaneously.

There's more, and you should read the whole thing.

Watch Vampire Weekend perform "A-Punk" at Pitchfork Music Festival (and check out the shirt):