The album The Story of the Ghost took an awful lot of time to get into. It's thick and intricate--although many tracks feature hooks, they're submerged in polyrhythmic acrobatics and dissonant harmonies. Coming off the sugary Billy Breathes, this was a hill to climb.

After a few listens, though, this album emerged as a favorite. Precisely because of the challenging material, the simple, drifting harmonies of "Brian and Robert" and "Wading in the Velvet Sea" are refreshing. Then on the other end of the spectrum, you have "Limb by Limb," in which drummer Jon Fishman seems to be taking on a time signature that can only be expressed in fractal dimensions. Somehow, it adds up to an incredibly rich percussion foundation for a song with meaningful lyrics and a triumphant melody. "Water in the Sky" layers Page McConnell's dizzying piano runs on top of a traditional middle America chord progression. And "Guyute" starts off with an immediately pleasing chorus melody before a long, winding road of eerie and bizarre diversions. Then the end repeats the chorus, and it's all the more satisfying; the song is a classic and played often in concerts.

Six years later, I'm still never sick of any track on this album. I love albums such as Billy Breathes also, but sometimes I'm not in the mood for something too cute (such as hearing "the bottom" repeated 86 times). The Story of the Ghost is the intricate and finely seasoned salad you wouldn't want to eat every day but can't savor enough on the occasions you do have it.

Of course, thanks to all of my Phish material being on my iPod, it was easy to end this listening session with a live version of "Taste," a terrific piece of ear candy.