Outside Inside

 (30 customer reviews)

The String Cheese Incident is an excellent band and Outside Inside is an excellent album. The key to this excellence is the musical talent in the band, both in the playing and the songwriting catagories. The music is what it's really all about, Charlie Brown. The scene is fun, the crowd rocks at the shows, the fans wear funny clothes, and, yes, that is marijuana you smell, but when push comes to shove, it's the music that matters.I saw the show at the Greek Theater in LA last night [straight, as always] and listened to the new album for the first time last night [straight, as always] and I think that puts me in a position to offer some pithy insights. The show and the album are different animals, but definitely of related species. As has been pointed out about studio albums by many a jam band, the songs just aren't the same on the album as they are in concert. Duh! It's a jam band. But as someone once said about the Grateful Dead [while expressing disappoinment about the...Read more

I must say that I am a tad bit subjective in rating this album because I am a certifiable FOC (Friend of Cheese). That aside this album is a perfect introduction to the depth and breadth of String Cheese Incident's (SCI) unique musical offerings. In the confines of one single disc they offer the listener a glimpse of exactly what a band should be. Not that I'm saying all bands should sound exactly like SCI, rather all bands should experiment with their sound as much as SCI does. On this one disc, the listener is bombarded with a myriad of different types of sound, from latin, to Carribean, to reggae, to straight-up rock, to Grateful Dead-esque psychdelic jamming, to a techno infused rendition of a SCI favorite (courtesy of DJ Logic), and finally to a sweet bluegrass tune. Very few bands are capable of such extreme shifts in musical focus all on one CD, yet SCI does it with ease.I guess that's enough reviewing for right now, I have two suggestions though: 1) Buy this CD, and...Read more

Somewhere between Phish's avant-arena highwire act and the Dave Matthews Band's coliseum Keg party lies The String Cheese Incident. A tripper-friendly improv-rock quintet with bluegrass roots, the Incident goes concise and crafty on their third studio album. Highlights range from the title track's southern-fried acid funk to electric-mandolin whiz Michael Kang's 10-minute prog-reggae ode to Gaia, "Rollover". Stylistically, the group adheres to an anything-goes policy, indulging in everything from r&b to afropop, but in the end, acoustic flat picker Bill Nershi brings it all back home. -Richard Gehr