Sony
2005
Shine
About This Album
Shine is an appropriate name for Trey Anastasio's first solo album since Phish's official 2004 disbandment: it's a bright, lively, shiny album, the next logical step from his first solo pop album, 2002's Trey Anastasio. In fact, Shine is considerably more streamlined and straight-ahead than that eponymous affair, which did have its adventurous moments, including the lengthy, 11-minute "Last Tube." In contrast, the longest song here clocks in a little bit over six minutes, and the entire record is tight, focused, clean, and quite hooky. In other words, it's the polar opposite of any Phish studio album; even at their tightest, the band showed a gleeful tendency to drift off course, and never quite could manage to translate their best elements from the stage to the studio. On his own, however, Anastasio manages to sound both sharp and relaxed, never letting his songs stretch out too long in the studio, and layering them just enough to keep the recordings dynamic and interesting. Plus, he has a good set of songs here on Shine -- not only are songs like the circular, irresistible "Tuesday" as ingratiating as the best moments on his self-titled 2002 platter, but this is a consistently strong, varied set of songs.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9)

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