For their twelfth and last studio album, Phish team up with the most fitting producer they've ever used: Tchad Blake, whose talent for bringing just the right unorthodox textures to roots-rock artists has yielded breakthrough works such as Los Lobos' Kiko and Sheryl Crow's second album, Sheryl Crow. On Undermind, Blake encourages Phish to do what they do best (experiment) and fine-tunes their worst tendencies (weak songwriting and instrumental overkill). The band delivers the most commanding song of its sixteen-year recording career, "The Connection." With its blast of ringing guitars, a hummable country-rock melody and Trey Anastasio's earthy vocals and surprisingly focused lyrics, the song evokes "Box of Rain," one of the stronger tunes by Phish's most obvious influence, the Grateful Dead.

But Undermind is no vintage American Beauty. Unlike the Dead's famous folk-rock album — or even Billy Breathes, Phish's other studio high point — Undermind is giddily adventurous. The album's fourteen tracks run from the simple, stripped-down psychedelia of the opening "Scents and Subtle Sounds" to the joyous rock of "Crowd Control"; from the dense, fuzzy feedback of "Maggie's Revenge" to the nearly translucent symphonic pop of "Secret Smile." Even Phish's whimsical side doesn't come off as so annoying: Blake musses up the bumbling "Access Me" with gritty electronic touches and skittering beats, and he submerges the awkward lyric clutter of "Nothing" beneath the song's sweet, catchy melody. If Phish really are going out this time, they're going out in style.

“All Along the Watchtower”

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."