Every day more and more people are tuning in and turning on to Umphrey's McGee. And for good reason. Like true sons of the American Midwest, Umphrey's McGee has risen to the upper echelons of the improvisational-rock scene through their seamless compositing of diverse musical influences, from progressive-rock to metal to funk to folk to jazz-fusion to classic song-based rock-and roll, all woven together with infectious melodies, thought-provoking lyrics, pristine harmonies, blistering musicianship, and rollicking grooves that keep dem bones a-shaking throughout the course of their patented sonic sagas. Their latest studio release Anchor Drops demonstrates with undeniable conviction the band's fluency in drawing from a wide variety of styles in the American popular music lexicon.
The band has solidified its reputation through a prolific national touring schedule and gripping performances at such high-profile gatherings as the Bonnaroo Music Festival, High Sierra Music Festival, and South By Southwest among others. True to their love of improvisation, Umphrey's McGee provides a unique experience with each performance. Everywhere they play, heads turn and ears prick up at the virtuoso playing, the acrobatic tempo changes and rhythmic shifts, as well as the captivating songs themselves. It's like a carnival of sound. "No one," extols Village Voice critic Richard Gehr, "is doing anything else as ambitiously musical as Umphrey's McGee." The attention they command has also prompted Michael Deeds of the Washington Post to call Umphrey's McGee "rock's undisputed lord of sonic shape-shifting."
This growing critical and popular esteem has led to the development of a fiercely loyal following. A burgeoning legion of fans, known alternately as "Umphreaks" and "McGeeks," is distinguished by its rabid burning and trading of live shows via the internet and at various clubs and concert venues, where committed street teams get the word out about the band and keep on spreading the music. The result has been numerous occasions when Umphrey's plays to sold-out houses in towns they've never visited before. The love of Umphrey's McGee music has spawned a volunteer grassroots publicity campaign as successful as that of any national band out there touring.
Devotees of "all cool music," the band identifies The Beatles and Led Zeppelin as primary influences with a reverence the members describe as "biblical." They also share a love for the music of Yes, Gabriel-era Genesis, King Crimson, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Miles Davis, and Jaco Pastorius. Their own playing and writing reflects these influences, yet maintains its own contemporary originality through a diligent avoidance of clichés (both musical and lyrical) and a willing patience to wait for the freshest expression of an idea to emerge. Sometimes song ideas sit dormant for years before finding a place in the band's vast repertoire. Using 8-bar segments and progressions (building blocks they have dubbed "legos"), primary songwriters Jake Cinninger and Brendan Bayliss construct their songs piecemeal and with the active participation of their bandmates. All arrangements are collaborative. Lyrics, too, are collected over time and groomed to be thought-provoking and open to interpretation. This is a band that likes its audience to think while they're dancing. Solid songcraft is the first crucial step in that process.
It was during December 1997, in South Bend, Indiana that a merger between two local bands gave birth to the group we now call Umphrey's McGee. The original line-up was Joel Cummins (keyboards, vocals), Brendan Bayliss (guitar, vocals) and Ryan Stasik (bass), and Mike Mirro (drums, vocals). After their first studio release, Greatest Hits Volume III (1998), they invited percussionist Andy Farag to join. In 1998 the band completed and released their second CD, Songs For Older Women, with Andy on board. The next evolution in their sound came in September of 2000, when primo guitarist Jake Cinninger became available and began contributing his guitar chops and ace songwriting to the mix. With the addition of Cinninger's vision, Umphrey's McGee focused exclusively on national recognition for their singular style. Their third recorded outing came in 2000. One Fat Suckacullslive performances from the band's Fall 2000 tour to showcase their skill and originality on stage. In 2002, the group's fourth release, the critically lauded Local Band Does OK, spread the Umphrey's name beyond the insulated confines of the jam scene and into a broader consciousness. Music that "fuses fusion, funk, and pop into a steamy psychedelic swirl," music that is called "cerebral" and "mathematical," yet "danceable and infectious" at the same time, music that "prog-rock nerds delight in discovering," music that "threatens to blow speakers-and a few minds-,"music for the parched heads out there begging for some depth and complexity, this is the startling music Umphrey's McGee delivered on LBDOK.
The year 2003 marked the departure of original drummer Mike Mirro, who headed off to medical school, and the addition of Chicago-area drummer Kris Myers, as well as the release of the first-ever Umphrey's McGee video Live From The Lake Coast, enabling fans to experience the full-on Umphrey's live presentation, light show and all.
And now, in 2004, the band has made good on its decision to record another great studio album. The effort is a conscious attempt to use the full capacity of the studio to function as an instrument itself. In doing so, Umphrey's McGee has whelped a masterpiece destined for broad appeal.
On their new record Anchor Drops, the band realizes its full potential for wide acceptance by listeners well beyond the jam world. In no way a recreation of the Umphrey's live presentation, Anchor Drops is highlighted by dazzling songcraft, memorable hooks, philosophical lyrics that manage to be poetic yet earthy and accessible, anthemic guitar lines, rock-solid rhythms, ecstatic climaxes, haunting acoustic interludes, dramatic sound effects, and a thematic coherence that enables each song to function as part of an epic interconnected whole.
With "Anchor Drops", Umphrey's McGee has unleashed a virtual joyride for the heart, body, mind, and soul.
Umphrey's McGee is Brendan Bayliss (guitar, vocals), Jake Cinninger (guitar, Moog, synthesizers, vocals), Joel Cummins (keyboards, vocals), Andy Farag (percussion), Kris Myers (drums, vocals), and Ryan Stasik (bass, no vocals). Also with the band are sound man Kevin Browning, monitor engineer Bob Ston, lighting designer Adam Budney, road manager Don Richards, and manager Vince Iwinski.
The best recording is their newest album "Anchor Drops".
"The Bottom Half" is the 5th full studio album from the band "Umphrey's McGee". This is one of those bands that I always equate to those jam bands like "Phish", "Widespread Panic" and "String Cheese Incident", however their music is a bit more varied than those bands, but they definitely do fit in that style overall.
This album, released in April of 2007, is a companion album to their album released previous to this which was "Safety in Numbers". The Safety in Numbers album was completed during a time when a friend of the band died, and by the time of it's release had become quite a somber album. The Bottom Half takes the songs left off of that album which consists of mostly upbeat and electric songs that were great songs, they just didn't fit the tone of that previous album.
This is a double disc album. The first disc consists of songs that were left off of the Safety in Numbers album, 11 of them as a matter of fact. The 2nd disc contains various other outtakes, demos and b-sides. They must have had quite a lot of songs as each one of the tracks on the 1st disc are definitely songs that any other band would have been happy with. They are all fully developed, and whether there has been any additional recording done to spiff them up for this album is not known to me.
The variety present on the first disc is quite apparent, and to tell the truth, I can only find 2 songs that are slightly less interesting, those being somewhat lackluster sounding, specifically the jazz-tinged "Red Room" which sounds similar to a "Lambchop" song and "Intentions Clear" which is lacking any emotion in the vocals, but which has a nice brass section that reminds one of "Steely Dan" at least. Everything else here is very good. These songs are well structured and even though they have that Phish vibe, they are definitely closer to Phish's studio work and don't contain a lot of improvised solos. I'm good with that as I would rather get to know the song and become familiar with it before hearing it improvised with long jamming solos.
The first album is comprised of some great upbeat tracks with a humorous and happy edge to them, including the funky "Bright Lights, Big City", the reggae-inspired "Higgins" which develops into quite a progressive track, the easy, southern harmonies of "Memories of Home", and the complex instrumental "Great American". To round off the album, the last two songs offer the lovely acoustic song "Home", and the excellent southern rock epic "Divisions" that has hints of progressiveness and a lot of great guitar and drum jamming that will remind one of The Allman Brothers, but better.
The 2nd disc, being full of outtakes, studio conversations, false starts and b-side is a bit less cohesive, but is something the fans of the band will appreciate. Regular listeners will love the first disc enough that they won't mind having that extra disc around even though it at least has some good full tracks on it if you don't mind skipping through the banter. There are some great instrumental versions of "Higgins" and "Words" on here, plus other worthwhile tracks like "Ocean Billy", "Never Cease" and "Believe the Lie", so probably half of the 2nd disc is worthwhile. But the real highlight is the 1st disc, which is, after all, the main album while the other is some good bonus material with some nice surprises.
Being a Crossover Prog band, you know you don't have to expect music that is wholly progressive, but that will still have some progressive leanings. But you do get an album with some very talented musicians performing some great material with hints of progressive elements. I consider UM a great and talented band and when they are at their best, they can produce an excellent album such as this one. Very enjoyable and high-quality musicianship with something for everyone.
I won't be the first to point out that something gets lost when this superlative live act enters the recording studio. The impressive synergy of the players gets transmuted into something polished but undistinguished. Songs that have been refined over years of performances are drained of their intrinsic appeal. Once again with "It's Not Us," the result is a more than listenable stretch of music that invites less passion in the listener than one would expect.
"It's Not Us" balances between, on the one hand, catchy rock/pop with a funky edge and, on the other, go-through- the-motions prog. Of course it's the proggy side that interests me the most, but the band really hits the sweet spot when they enter hybrid territory that's harder to define.
There are three decidedly proggy songs that take up twenty minutes of the album. Two of them are situated next to each other a third of the way through the album on tracks 5 & 6. "Maybe Someday" traipses pleasantly and expertly through odd meter sections and spacy but thoroughly composed textural passages. It's a very appealing track.
The succeeding "Remind Me," begins as a run-of-the-mill funky jam band number, but it transitions unexpectedly into a hectic dark prog instrumental, reminiscent simultaneously of IQ and of a high-tempo Porcupine Tree/Wilson jam. This section is red meat for proggers and will have many banging their heads even thought it panders a little too hard.
Also of note to proggers is the album-ending "Dark Brush." It sounds like its title, with a distorted vocal verse built on a trudging seven-four and dissonant riffing. The chorus is a grandiose power chord affair with Tom Sawyer filter sweep bass synth that could cause goosebumps. It's a very impressive sound.
Conversely, there are a few conventional pop/rock songs that aim for ear-worm status. I suppose this band doesn't need a hit single to continue its moderate success, but it wouldn't hurt. "The Silent Type," "Whistle Kids" and the domestic bliss ballad "You and You Alone" are reasonable attempts at no-nonsense pop. I couldn't judge whether they succeed on that basis. None of them infected me to want to hear them again and again.
Then there are the tracks that are more difficult to pigeonhole, such as "Looks," "Half Delayed," "Piranhas" and "Forks." Out of these, "Forks" stands out, an exuberant mood lifter with somewhat Jon Anderson-esque lyrics. It's the one place on the album where the band most effectively captures live show energy, while still providing the idealized sculpting expected on a studio album. In my view, "Forks" is the most unqualified success on "It's Not Us."
This is a very talented band with a twenty-year track record. Anybody expecting a magnum opus will be disappointed, but taken as a sampler of what they do, there's a lot to enjoy on "It's Not Us." Still, the album title is true in the sense that the true Umphrey's McGee can only really be witnessed when they're capturing the musical moment in a concert venue.
I seem to recall that the band originally came out of the jamband scene, mixing blues with country, folk, bluegrass, prog, rock etc. and then taking it out on the road. That they continue to hit the road is evident in not only that they have played more than 2,200 gigs, but the way that the guys all innately know what everyone is doing, even before it takes place. This is music that is so tight that it isn't possible to find any point when the five of them aren't all locked together as one unit. The best way to describe this music is by saying that it is incredibly accessible, and then leaving it to the listener to try and work out what genre any song, or rather any particular piece of a song, actually belongs in. They truly belong to crossover progressive rock in its very truest sense, as they bring in pop sensibilities into just about every style of music going and then making it very much their own. There are some good rules to try to stick to in life, such as not wasting time and money on drinking bad wine and not spending time listening to bad music. That could never be the case with these guys, as the quality is off the charts. Highly recommended.
Mashup albums are not exactly commonplace in the music world, especially those produced by a single group. Most bands are fixated on producing their own material before parroting others'. Umphrey's McGee, South-Bend's golden boys, have created for themselves a (mostly) positive reputation with their nine current studio releases, and have gained quite a bit of traction in the both prog and jam scene. So they thought, why not: let's release a mashup album. Seems like a pretty good idea to me; the band has shown themselves to be skilled, charismatic and genuinely intelligent on more than one occasion. I was pretty excited when first hearing about it. So excited in fact that I forgot that it even came out until half a month later. So now, finally, we get to see the finished product.
Zonkey's it's name, and it's pretty alright. I've always liked mashups, even if they feature songs that I don't necessarily like but hold name-recognition value to me. This focuses (mostly) more on the rock side of music monoliths, which is much more my forte. Bands that are mashed include but are not limited to: Metallica, Gorillaz, Bob Marley, Pink Floyd, you name it. To cover such a wide range of genres, each member of the band contributes vocally depending on what style it is. A notable example of this is drummer Kris Myers absolutely nailing the Hetfield -like, eerily so. Some of the mashups are undeniably better than others. I'm not a huge fan of the Eurythmics / MGMT / Corey Hart 'Sweet Sunglasses', mainly due to personal music preference. Also, a name like that isn't bound to register much out of me (I mean come on- "Sweet Sunglasses"?). However the opener 'National Loser Anthem' is fantastic. Stylistically it was a great idea to start the album out with the eeriness of Radiohead, albeit with a drop of Beck in there. The best part in my opinion of the song is the second half, where 'In The Air Tonight' comes into play with the iconic Roland CR-78 drum beat. 'Frankie Zombie', with perhaps the most odd combination (White Zombie, Pink Floyd and Frankie Goes to Hollywood) is rather good as well. If we're looking for progressiveness, or at least Umphrey's type, then 'Life During Exodus' nearly fits the bill. The reggae of Bob Marley mixes surprisingly well with Frank Zappa's experimentation and the quasi-jazz rock of Chicago.
I would explain more but I believe, in the certain circumstance, that such an explanation would be a disservice to the reader. With such a wide range of genres and talents being covered, the album encapsulates stupidity, quirkiness, skill, all in one package. Is it essential? No, I don't believe so. But I'll be damned if Umphrey's didn't pull it off in a great way.
At first, though delighted, I thought it was a little less than "Anchor Drops". Some time and listens made me realize that that "little less" is so much more: "Mantis" lets go of the 2004 (fantastic) album pout-pourry and focuses on that never too explored prog side of the band (probably a side more influenced by the early '80s and AOR one than of the glorious seventies). The album starts with "Made to measure", a surprisingly quiet track since UM had always opened with more striking numbers. Very beatlesque, it is followed by the title track that is by far the most progressive song in the sextet catalog, with tempo changes and different moments (from hard rocking to relaxed) that seam quite well thru the 11 minutes length. Nevertheless, the top track here is "Spires", with heavy guitars licks and piano veils introducing an acrobatic track with lots of memorable hooks, exciting moments and a dreamy epilogue providing chills. "Red Tape" is another great track, with lots of stop and go and fun uptempo playing. All the tracks are very good, and I consider this one the best among the UM discography and a very interesting suggestion for prog estimators.
If Umphrey's in 2002 was considered doing OK, then Anchor Drops is doing fantastic. This album's a bit of a tie for loose ends hanging out on the prior album, ironing out most of the amateurism and lack of focus that was at all featured on it. The variety of unique instruments don't over-exert themselves and become cluttered nearly as much, giving the band a renewed sound of a seasoned progressive jam band. The dilettante voice of Brendan Bayliss (like on 'In The Kitchen' and 'Walletsworth') derives a particularly organic feel from the album, and even more interesting when juxtaposed with the complex percussions of Andy Farag and Kris Meyers. The band even strikes a few heavy chords every one and awhile, evoking a powerful presence that it doubtless better when enjoyed watching them do it in action.
Anchor Drops marks a point for the band as an indication of their moving away from their influences and becoming their own unit. All I can say is, godspeed!
A fate that jam bands can many times have is one that with so much time and effort focused on large and epic live performances, actual studio albums can come to be rather lackluster in effort. Phish and the Dead are the most notorious for not sinking to this level, and less well known is Umphrey's McGee, a band rising more in popularity as more and more albums are released. Obviously taking after Phish, the band's second and more "official" album Local Band Does Okay is more or less an emulation of the 80's band. Bayliss recreate Trey Anastasio's relaxed playing style, which can shift suddenly depending on something abrupt like a tempo change. Cinninger's drumming is much akin to that of Jon Fishman, the very eclectic yet talented drummer of Phish. This works well with the plethora of percussion instruments that McGee has to work with, and luckily are used in their on ways and not played in one cacophony. Speaking of plethora, the number of instruments that McGee crams into each song is quite extraordinary, yet does cause a lack of cohesion between tracks, making for a song list that varies wildly from one to the other. This could be positive depending on how you want an album's structure to be- for me, I prefer a certain level of unity when one song transitions to another, but of course that's just me.
In summary this album is a step in the right direction, yet the orchestra of goofy instruments is not quite enough to differentiate Umphrey's McGee from Picture of Nectar-era Phish. As for someone who does like Phish and listens to them on a regular basis, this is not much more than retreading of the same ground that has already been beaten, and interesting variations already composed. Again though, the album does show some promise for the band's future. This local band did OK.
US band UMPHREY'S MCGEE was formed back in 1997, and has established itself as a popular staple in the US live circuit, more often than not regarded as a part of the so called jam band scene. Over the years they have released more than a dozen of live and studio albums, and appear to have established themselves fairly well among a key audience without ever becoming pigeonholed into any specific genre-oriented crowd as such. "Similar Skin" is their eighth studio production, and was released through their own label Hanging Brains Music in 2014.
Existing fans will have explored this album in depth by the time that this review is published, and while I suspect that the album may not have gone down all that well with their entire established fan base, I applaud the band for continuing to venture out to explore and expand their boundaries rather than replicating material of the exactly same nature as they have earlier. For those who haven't given this band a check yet, this particular production is one I'd recommend to those who know and enjoy bands like King's X and Rush as they appeared in the late '80s.