Captain Beefheart - Safe As Milk

Along with many other aspects of Captain Beefheart’s life (career, fanbase, childhood etc.) there is a lot in common between him and Frank Zappa. I’ll keep this review short, because a lot of points made in the “Freak Out!” review from Monday apply here. The album is a lot more traditional than what is found in the rest of the Beefheart repertoire. The album starts normal and gets weirder as it goes on.

The actual musical content is probably more consistent here than any of Beefheart’s following albums, which sort of made me wonder why this album wasn’t more successful at the time. Most of the tracks are built around the blues or the then-new hard rock sound, with a certain edginess which would come to full fruition with the punk movement in the 70’s. Here it is the straighter tracks which stand out against the more abstract pieces. Sure ‘Nuff ‘N’ Yes I Do opens the record with some arid slide guitar. The middle third of the album drops a bit for me personally, picking up again from Abba Zaba onwards.

The bonus material is also worth mentioning. Taking place during the sessions for the abandoned follow up, It Comes to You in a Plain Brown Wrapper, later reworked into Strictly Personal. The sound quality is better here than it is for the rest of the album, and it also has a much more refined approach to the experimental approach to rock and roll. When put in the context of the Mirror Man Sessions from the same project, It Comes to You in a Plain Brown Wrapper would have probably been better than Safe As Milk, so it’s good to have at least a small insight into how that album might have turned out.

The current 1999 Buddah reissue does have a few sound issues. For one, the Captain’s voice is too far back in the mix, and the guitar is excessively muddy. The only other alternative is a long out of print (and expensive) original CD pressing or a multitude of better sounding vinyl if you have the set up for it. The reissue is still worth it for the outtakes, but the album is better represented in just about every other form it’s taken to date.

Sure ‘Nuff ‘N’ Yes I Do: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayUqmladJuo

Trust Us (Take 9 from the It Comes to You in a Plain Brown Wrapper sessions): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_QYc50QVT4