Rhino

It’s easy to hear why some Grateful Dead fans revere May 1977, documented on a pristine and beautifully packaged new 14-disc box set from Rhino. The multi-headed-lovebeast grooves are tight and the singing is crisp, Jerry Garcia’s guitar soars, and the fidelity is, like, pretty high.

Behind the scenes, though, the Dead were turning from drug-aided to drug-addled. In turn, May 1977 is often the musical equivalent of Garcia’s new tinted shades, the easy loping intimacy of the band’s post-psychedelic boogieism lost behind an increasingly bombastic plod. There is, as they say, a lot of cowbell. On formerly sparse ballads, Mickey Hart occupies every rhythmic hole with slo-mo thunder. Open-ended jamming is on the wane, with the band favoring the solo-over-changes mode of “Fire on the Mountain” (represented by three incandescent takes) to the group-improvised Martian flights of yore.

Even more thrilling are the dark reggae missions of five “Estimated Prophet” s – especially 5/15 in Atlanta – played every night by a band excited by and (somewhat) committed to new material. Surprises abound: a post- “Uncle John’s Band” space-out (5/11), a high-wire disco “Dancing in the Street” and the debuts of “Iko Iko” and “Jack-a-Roe” (all 5/15). But like Keith Godchaux’s all-too-quickly-abandoned Polymoog keyboard, dabbling tentative color throughout, experimentation is subtle. Musical conservatism is on the wax. Every disc of May 1977 kicks ass like an all-new Greatest Hits album. But Greatest Hits albums are for n00bs.