Terrapin Station 1977 Album

The Grateful Dead

The Dead's aimless studio odyssey continues. This time around, they attempted to create a serious record based around a general theme (more or less), but as with previous efforts, it's disjointed at best. This barely sounds like the same band that did Wake of The Flood, never mind American Beauty. The first side riffs absentmindedly on cover tunes and tepid soft rock. Ironically, it's the much maligned second side which I like more, even though the extended "Terrapin Part 1" is really a very Un-Dead-like exercise, having more in common with prog rock bands like Yes or Kansas than their normal folk/blues context. But not everyone will feel the same way, and in the end, it's just as mediocre as the releases immediately preceding it.