Customer Reviews

Ice Cream for Crow

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As the line from The Most The Ghost The Most Holy-o goes
"Piled high on truth mountain. The last peak in clarities chain" I think says something about this album. It is his "last peak (peek) and I think his clearest. Lyricly, it is not as challenging as some of his earlier releases and allows an easier look into the mind of a very honest human. The music is perfect. Something I have always liked about Capt Beefheart is that he gets across that there is great beauty in things that on the surface are uncomfortable and difficult to understand. This album, along with Doc At The Radar Station, make up the "later stuff" that allow the "earlier stuff" to be the "earlier stuff" Weather you are coming from Trout Mask Replica or Clear Spot/Spotlight Kid, this is a logical next album . If it is your first,wow, you're lucky.Wherever you're coming from,you bothered to read this, so you KNOW you want it.

Ice Cream For Crow is a highly enjoyable & inventive album. Many of the songs are amongst the best of Beefheart which is saying something & that of course puts it high up the mountain looking down on the sterile schtick passing for rock both then & now. Often this lp is only mentioned in passing as the Captain's last without paying too much attention to it on its own merits, which is a shame, this is not the the typical once great band grows weary & spits out a mediocre goodbye a la Pavement's Terror Twilight, certainly more showing the endless potential of the newer Magic Band [evolving since 1975 w/ Morris Tepper & co.]. The opening title track was a single & had a video done for it which was 1 of the earliest & the only one CB ever did, Don explained to Dave Letterman that Ice Cream For Crow referred to black & white. It's a stomping almost country blue boogie, about the heat of the desert, "it's so hot, looks like you have 3 beaks crow" & I'm not even going to ponder what else. The Host, the Ghost, the Most Holy-O deals with religious matters & the music is a bit slower but certainly still jagged in that classic Beefheart way. The Semi-multicoloured Caucasian is an instrumental guitar feature that is really quite pleasant & could almost get airplay. Hey Garland is the most farout/abrasive composition here, epic ranting over skronk supreme. Track-by-track descriptions get boring after a while so I'll just say other highlights are the 1010th Day of the Human Totem Pole [nice sax solo there I might add], The Past Sure Is Tense [try getting Richard Midnite Hatsize Snyder's bassline out of yr head, eh?], & The Witch Doctor Life. It's that rare combination of being in its own world but readily inviting @ the same time, combining elements of the previous lps Doc @ the Radar Station & Shiny Beast prefectly. As the final chapter to some of the best music ever made, it was time for the next generation of creators to start off, 1982 saw the release of 5-track eps from R.E.M. & Sonic Youth, both then unknown but making big impacts soon enough [the latter definitley being Captain Beefheart fans by the way]. Enough posthumous contemplations, whip the thing on, obey the command to TURN UP THE SPEAKERS! & dig in to a magical feast for the ears.

I finally got this thing on CD. I don't want to reveal my age but I've had this thing since it came out. I upgraded from a cassette that was played too much and sat in hot cars too much. I prefer this album and "Doc at Radar.." over just about anything Beef and the MB did.

Everyone talks about "Trout Mask" so much so I will too:

To me, these later works by CB and the MB are superior. The band is tighter, the production is better, the Captain had refined his song poem style to perfection and studio/equipment was of higher quality.

"Trout Mask" by comparrison has dubious sound quality, lack of variation, and some writing which is not of this calibur, but perhaps that's just me. "Trout Mask" is a good bargain however and I rate it 5 stars also. What else besides other Beefheart albums can you compare these records to? None.... so these have to be 5 star albums.

A few people have said they can hear his voice failing him on this record. I beg to differ. It's true he talks his way through alot of tracks, but he always did. Just listen to "Trout Mask" again and confirm it.

Anyway, he sings most songs here, "Ice Cream", "Ink Mathmatics", "The Witch Doctor Life" "The Past Sure is Tense", etc. He's in tune, his voice is powerful, the tunes are catchy, the band is on fire. It's really some of the most realized work of his career.

About the only songs that aren't as realized by the band are "Cardboard Cutout", "SKeleton" and "Hey Garland" but that's just because the band doesn't appear to have hashed out what they are doing as much. His lyrics of course are cool on all songs and "Poop Hatch" is one of his best spoken pieces ever.

Highly recommended!

And yes, that is what a human totem pole actually sounds like. That said, this is probably a lot easier to get into than Trout Mask, as in it's got more songs resembling what most people consider music, but its still very "inaccessible" music for the most part. To me though, its a logical progression from the two proceeding albums, Doc at the Radar Station and Shiny Beast. I wouldn't try tackling this one without having exhausted these two brilliant albums first. I will say, this one is very interesting, like just about anything Beefheart's done, and it is growing on me. What would the music world be like without him...

Ice Cream for Crow is the crown jewel of Don Van Vliet`s brilliant career. Also `truth mountain` is Beefheart`s cryptic reference to the Great Pyramid.

Lyrically, to me this one ranks with the best of his work that I am aware of. His imagery is so unexpected, and (what else?) uniqely creative. "Hey Garland..." and "Cardboard Cutout Sundown" are my personal favorites here that sets one out on a brief but pleasureable little journey (as does much of the whole album for that matter). You may find Crow irresistable too.

His last and most human album, and one of my favorites. You can hear CB's weariness and frustration with the music biz in his strained and failing vocal chords. It makes your throat sore and your eyes water. The youthful exuberance of this incarnation of the magic band balances his bitterness, and you can almost hear his resolve towards the end, especially in the beautiful "81 Poop Hatch". Check out beefheart.com to see what he's doing now!

First of all, one thing that immediately strikes me about Ice Cream for Crow is that the production is really good. It doesn't sound overblown or artificial like many albums from the 80's. It definitely doesn't sound like typical dance material with loud drum machines either. Instead it sounds really remarkable and reminiscent of an early 70's recording.

With that said, the good Captain's songwriting skills were definitely showing signs of deterioration.

This is most noticeable in a track like "The Thousandth and Tenth Day of the Human Totem Pole". This track fails because it lacks any really clever lyrics and it honestly should NOT have included an obnoxious saxophone jam stretching out for 2 and a half minutes. True, Captain Beefheart used the same kind of offensive sax playing on an album like Trout Mask Replica, but at least on there those sax solos eventually morphed into something interesting or creative. Here the saxophone just keeps going until it eventually fizzles out. Not the same kind of satisfying result.

Looking beyond that one 6-minute misstep however, there's definitely signs of improvement. The title song is some really whacked out attempt at a country rock number, and it works. Beefheart's vocals are REALLY all over the place while maintaining a semi-straight forward rhythm pace, and it's really neat and shows off Beefheart's extremely distinct style.

"Semi-Multicoloured Caucasian" is an instrumental that's pretty melodic and easy listening in a Jerry Garcia kind of way (except of course, Beefheart made it slightly weirder and more melodic than anything Garcia has ever done- with all due respect to HIS own guitar talents, of course). "The Witch Doctor Life" is a VERY cool song thanks to the weird style of the guitar playing (and the lyrics of course). It's quite reminiscent of "The Spotlight Kid" too. Lyrically there's really no problems here. Captain Beefheart is definitely in fine form.

"The Past Sure is Tense" seems relatively forgettable at first, but with repeated listens and a desire to pay closer attention to the lyrics, the song carries a new meaning. Paying attention to the lyrics also allows the listener to grasp the weird guitar work too. Definitely not your typical-sounding early 80's rock song, that's for sure.

Here's where the album completely loses me. "Hey Garland, I Dig Your Tweed Coat" is another display of Captain's extremely creative lyrics, and (I guess) it works because it tells a rather fascinating story about... who knows? He sings about everything from pigs to turkeys to bees to seaweed plants to the sunshine and darkness to... however you'd like to interpret it! "81' Poop Hatch" is another "let's talk about weird lyrics instead of actually delivering these lines in a cool creative way" type of songs. This of course means it's only interesting *sometimes* or rather, when I feel like being attacked by a series of hard to comprehend words.

"Evening Bell" is a decent attempt at copying the guitar fiddling of a few instrumental tracks from Trout Mask Replica I could name. "Cardboard Cutout Sundown" starts off the same way with the confusing lyrics before drifting into a pointless noodle-fest of a guitar jam.

Because of all these talking songs without any actual songwriting or any creativity in the instrumental department, I ended up having to deduct two points from the overall rating.

This is Beefheart's last album, and it's not one of his best....especially coming after a powerhouse like "Doc At The Radar Station". Still, it's a nice farewell, and there are some interesting moments overall. "The Past Sure Is Tense" is the best track...although it's a re-write of an older song called "Little Scratch" (which can only be found on "The Dust Blows Forward" anthology).

Billy Bob Thorton's favorite album. Culled from the Trout Mask Replica sessions, this is a splendid return to form for a true American original. Riding the line between pop and avant-garde, the cure for the bored listener. The Captain's voice, though aged, resurects Howlin' Wolf better than anyone I know. Gary Lucas's inspired guitar adds another splendid dimension. Fully equipped with cover art by the man himself. Buy it already!