Garcia Puts Life Into Dead’s ‘Built’ : GRATEFUL DEAD “Built to Last,” Arista ** 1/2:

When it’s Uncle Jerry’s Band, the Dead is something to hear. But when Jerry Garcia steps back and lets the other guys take over, “Built to Last” subsides into something less durable. The best songs are the three valedictory numbers sung and co-written by Garcia. They’re fine (especially the title track), except when Brent Mydland’s incongruous synthesizer flourishes creep into the Dead’s woody sound, like prefab housing thrown up in a fine old historic district.

A couple of Mydland songs about relationship woes provide a good counterpoint on Side 1 to Garcia’s philosophic overviews about striving, understanding and enduring. But Mydland winds up singing four of the album’s nine songs, giving too much weight to a singer who, while earnest enough, is basically a second-string Bob Seger.

Bob Weir’s two contributions are bookend songs about doubt and inspiration--the doubt-ridden number, “Victim or the Crime,” giving the Dead a chance for some dark blazing that belies the band’s reputation as just a sunny, loping sound track for the free-form dancing of tie-dyed concert fans. “Built to Last” holds up well as a thematically coherent look at the prospects for getting by, and maybe even soaring a bit, in a fallen and dangerous world. But taken one by one, most of the songs don’t live up to the title’s warranty.