Recorded and released in 1974,
the Grateful Dead
's seventh studio album,
From the Mars Hotel
, came after a ceaseless run of touring that the band built their enduring legacy on, and right before they decided to take a break from the road for a year or two. Where much of their studio output could be unfocused or not quite as exciting as the mystical group playing of their live shows, the eight songs that make up
Mars Hotel
strike a balance that was rare for the band. Relaxed, floating tunes like "Unbroken Chain" or concert staple "Scarlet Begonias" take liberties with studio magic, overdubbing synthesizer textures atop
Jerry Garcia
's telltale guitar soloing and dialing in their mix of layered vocal harmonies, interweaving keyboards and guitars, and dynamics that would be next to impossible to control in the concert setting. Opening track "U.S. Blues" taps into the endless boogie the band rode masterfully on-stage, but it deepens the instrumentation with subtle clavinet tones and piano runs. Lesser-known
Dead
tune "Loose Lucy" is similar, while "Pride of Cucamonga" is one of several cowboy songs
Phil Lesh
often worked into set lists, adorned in its studio version with tinkling saloon piano and heavenly pedal steel accents. The
Bob Weir
-led "Money Money" presages the late-night funk sleaze that would come to the forefront a few years later on
Shakedown Street
, but the band settle the record down easy with the gorgeous and contemplative ballad "Ship of Fools."
is an underrated segment of the
Grateful Dead
's studio oeuvre, lacking the massive stylistic shifts or evolutionary turns that make some of their more celebrated albums stand out. The painful irony is that this album achieved the standard goal of the record industry in the early '70s: capturing some of the lightning in a bottle of an amazing live act's stage show in a way that still lets solid songwriting shine through. Though unshowy and straightforward, these eight tunes represent precisely where
the Dead
were at in 1974 and stand as some of their most true-to-form studio work overall. ~ Fred Thomas