Widespread Panic - Ain't Life Grand 1994

Widespread Panic's fourth album features tighter, more song-oriented writing. The searing guitar of the opening tune, "Little Kin," introduces a grittier album than the previous year's Everyday. After touring with the first two H.O.R.D.E. tours in 1992 and 1993, the band's popularity was growing. Their rousing version of Bloodkin's heartbreak tune "Can't Get High" earned them radio play. As did their own smoothly melodic "Airplane," which features lush vocal harmonies. "Blackout Blues" celebrates the hangover with electric guitar screams and a dance-inducing beat, while "Fishwater"'s chaotic percussion intro awakens the soul. The disc also includes two gorgeous instrumental pieces, "L.A." and the hidden, acoustic guitar track "Waiting for the Wind to Blow the Tree Down in My Backyard." Ain't Life Grand increased Widespread Panic's fan base dramatically and gave them a taste of what continued radio play could mean for the band. AMG.

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Widespread Panic - Free Somehow 2008

Another Widespread Panic album, another attempt to transfer the band's live energy onto tape. Free Somehow isn't Widespread's best studio effort to date, nor does it pack the same punch as the band's ever-popular concerts, where extended solos and long-running jams are more likely to illicit dropping jaws than drowsy, nodding heads. Still, this disc is nothing to sleep through, even ifWidespread Panic haven't learned to utilize a studio's amenities as well as Phish or moe. "Boom Boom Boom," "Walk on the Flood," and "Flicker" are fierce tunes, full of enough guitar muscle and saucy strut to make them worthy of repeated listens, although they do sound geared for a live setting.Free Somehow gets intimate, too, most notably with the lilting title track and the steady, elegiac "Dark Day Program." But Widespread Panic don't truly stretch their wings until the album's final stretch, where "Her Dance Needs No Body" takes the listener on an eight-minute stoner's odyssey of rainy-day guitars, horns, sweeping percussion, and orchestrated strings. It's a well-crafted song with movements, interludes, and multiple guitar solos, a cross between the Grateful Dead's "Dark Star" and Guns N' Roses' "November Rain." Here, the band truly works with the studio's capabilities, layering the standout track with instruments and adding a thick, crisp slab of reverb to John Bell's vocals. So while Free Somehow can't quite rival the energy of a Widespread show, it still offers something that those concerts cannot, making the album a worthwhile purchase for most dedicated fans. AMG.

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Widespread Panic - Ball 2003

Politics aside -- this is the first-ever Widespread Panic record that hasn't had numerous versions of tracks available on the Internet; the band kept it under wraps until release time -- this is the most ambitious and refined album the band has ever issued. Widespread Panic is the only band from the whole jam scene that emerged from the south and the oft-spouted Allman Brothers' font of inspiration who remains interesting. Over the course of eight studio albums and three live outings, Widespread Panic has mutated into a unit who can make harmonic -- and even hooky -- sense of virtually any scrap of a musical idea. Ball is a refinement of the ambition of Don't Tell the Band. While that record featured exercises in everything from blues to Latin and fusion, Ball centers itself on solid rock & roll of varying textures and approaches. What it means is that for the first time since their self-titled second album, the band has hunkered down and practiced the craft of tight, well-scripted, rock-conscious songwriting. What's more, with the aid of producer John Keane, they execute the fruits of their labor with aplomb, grace, and elegance. There's the pastoral backyard view into the world of "Counting Train Cars" with whining, shimmering pedal steel and a high, lonesome harmonica, with frontman John Bell offering the lyrics as if he's in the middle of them, not projecting them. This is the kind of song the Counting Crows wish they could write, and that R.E.M. tried -- and failed -- to do for literally decades. Think of the Band if they were really from the south and had Dickey Betts and Sneaky Pete Kleinow. In addition, there's the bluesy, southern-fried rock of "Papa Johnny Road," with slithering guitars and a funky bassline accented by popping, single-string fills from a clawhammer banjo; here one can hear a trace of the Allmans, especially in Bell's delivery and the behind-the-beat twinned guitars. Elsewhere, the Richard Thompson-influenced guitar stylings of George McConnell's acoustic create a taut line crossed with Bell's near-British folk-styled vocal; while McConnell can re-create the beautiful octave drones and double-string runs of Thompson, Bell's singing is purely American, though he's going for Nick Drake or even early John Martyn; it's a striking, simple, and beautifully wrought song. There are also knotty, multi-faceted tunes that the Panics are (in)famous for, like the wondrously psychedelic "Meeting of the Waters" or the balls-out rocker "Nebulous," which cuts to the chase with John Herman's organ driving the entire engine. The record closes on a pair of contrasting tunes: the jazzy, almost loungy "Time Waits," haunted by Herman's B3 floating through the guitars and rhythms, and the near-anthemic stoner road song "Travelin' Man." No, we're not talking about a cover of the Ricky Nelson song; this is pure hippie-dream theory: "Been feelin' alright, for a coupla days/Either in a fog, or a sunny haze." Ringing, jangling guitars buoy Bell as he states his intention to live without purpose or destination. The killer flatpicking solo by McConnell in the bridge makes Bell's strident electric rhythm guitar seem more open, wide into the panorama that is the emptiness of all dreamers, where everything is connected. It's a very fine, laid-back rocker that carries out Ball on an up-note. Despite the fact that this is Widespread's "tightest" and most glossy record, it doesn't divulge its secrets easily. It needs repeated listenings to take it all in, and once that happens, it becomes an indispensable addition to their catalog. (Hint: Don't yank it out of the CD player right away when that last track ends.) AMG.
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Widespread Panic - Über Cobra 2004

'Spreadheads should be delighted by this anomaly in Widespread Panic's catalog. Recorded live in Myrtle Beach in November of 2003, Über Cobra is the first set of the concert, and is now an "acoustic" album by the Southern jam rockers. The reason the word is in quotes is because the organ is still used and it's electric as hell, and John Keane, the band's producer, plays pedal steel on four tracks. That said, this is one of the most cohesive live dates the band has ever recorded. Full of the space and texture that only acoustic instruments can provide, the playing is tight and inspired. The flowing nature of the band's sound -- instantly recognizable even without electricity -- lends itself well to the relaxed, "unplugged" atmosphere. The effect of this set is anything but back-porch laid-back. The music is high quality, full of crackling energy and gorgeous dynamics. What's most revealing here is just how great a singer John Bell is. On the band's other live outings, he is forced to growl into the maelstrom of swirling instruments. Here, the subtle nuances in his voice are exposed up front and extend the musicality of the proceedings. The track selection is wonderful, too, including originals like "Wonderin'" and "Nobody's Loss," with Keane's sweet, loping steel in the background. And as satisfying as these and other tracks are, it is in the covers that Widespread Panic reveals its true strength as a band. Revisiting the Talking Heads song catalog, the band delivers a gorgeous extended version of David Byrne's "City of Dreams" that captures the dreaminess of the original and adds an authentic kind of rural Southern soul. The read of Willis Alan Ramsey's "Geraldine & the Honey Bee" offers a wonderful tension between the relaxed honky tonk stroll of the original and Bell's country blues vocal. Likewise, Vic Chesnutt's "Expiration Day" is a tender, deeply moving ballad that literally drips with emotion. "Mercy" rollicks like the road tune it is, strutting its minor-key rambling acoustic rock into snarling intensity. And just before the closer, Widespread Panic trots out its reverent yet trademarked take on Blind Faith's "Can't Find My Way Home," all the more poignant because of its hushed volume. Bell's voice wrenches all the desolate anguish out of Stevie Winwood's lyric as the hand percussion and guitars and organ slip around him like a well-worked glove. "Papa Johnny Road" closes the set, with George McConnell's killer sharp National Steel licks filling the verses and underscoring the vocal lines. This is one of the Panic's very best live recordings not only because of its eclectic presentation, which is part of the draw, but also because this band plays so exceptionally well in this setting -- it would be a delight for a studio album to be done this way as well. AMG.

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