Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica remains one of the key avant-garde rock albums around

As was the case with Captain Beefheart himself, or Don Van Vliet as he was known to his parents, his third-ever (double) album Trout Mask Replica (1969) became a controversial thing the moment it was released, and remains so to this day.

There was not, and still isn’t a middle ground with this album, it was either vehemently hated or absolutely loved by both critics and fans. From listeners throwing the album’s two discs through the window (and photographing it) to the album finding (and remaining) in so many best ever rock album lists. You never heard, or could still hear a reaction that would be on the line of “oh, I don’t know…”

This all stems from the immediate reactions when hearing this album for the first time - Van Vliet’s practically inimitable voice, possibly only compared to that of Tom Waits at its gruffest (a big fan of Beefheart there), the incredible, complex, for some impenetrable, angular compositions going in all directions and band playing to match. Add to that some often heavy and hard to decipher lyrics (who else wrote a song about a concentration camp? - “Dachau Blues”). The listeners either loved or hated it instantly.

Yet, when you try and do peel into the musical and lyrical layers Van Vliet and his Magic Band presented here you realize you are (con)fronted with the most extreme avant-garde rock albums ever recorded, at the time released on Frank Zappa’s (Van Vliet’s lifetime friend, among the rare number there was) fledgling record label Bizarre and produced by Zappa himself.

Captain Beefheart: A method to the madness

While to some listeners the whole album might sound like chaotic shambles, it is known to insiders, critics, and particularly the band itself, that there were months-long, grueling practice sessions behind the album to which Van Vliet exposed the members of his Magic Band to get the ‘songs’ to sound as they actually do on the album. What ended in the grooves was a set of layered, truly complex compositions rather than songs, something practically all those artists trying to fit within the prog rock genre after Beefheart trying to do and rarely achieving the level Van Vliet and his band did on this album.

Now, in retrospect, it still remains one of the key avant-garde/prog rock albums around and deserves that classic status the likes of Tom Waits, John Lydon, Ry Cooder, Fran Zappa, and other rock legends, among others afford to this album.