Umphrey's McGee

A jam band coming out of the Midwest in the mid-'90s, Umphrey's McGee edged toward the Frank Zappa side of the improv rock scale, as opposed to the Grateful Dead direction espoused by many of their contemporaries. With the national jam band infrastructure already in place, the band quickly began disseminating their live shows and soon released their first album, Greatest Hits, Vol. 3. The fourth-generation jam band often included songs by Phish and Moe in their live sets, along with the usual selection of wacky covers. A long-time-coming labor of love as well as an inspiring affirmation of musical brotherhood, Umphrey's 2009 release, Mantis, is their first fully fleshed-out studio statement since 2006's Safety in Numbers, which was followed by 2007's odds-and-sods collection The Bottom Half and the live album Live at Murat. So when Brendan Bayliss sings, "We believe there's something here worth dying for," to kick off Mantis's majestic title track, you should take him at his word.