"If 1969's "Live Dead" presented the Grateful Dead as psychedelic explorers, "Skull & Roses" is mostly a rowdy, hard-partying affair, drawn from spring '71 shows. Great fun, as ever, and a clutch of then-new-songs - especially a chiming, transcendent "Wharf Rat" - capture the band's intense creativity at the time. But even the addition of a July '71 gig, their last at the Fillmore West, can't detract from the feeling that "Skull & Roses" is ostensibly a trial run for the following year's magisterial "Europe '72""