ICE CREAM FOR CROW

Captain Beefheart's swansong is a charming companion piece to Doc At the Radar Station, continuing that album's mixture of jagged instrumentals, unaccompanied spoken word poetry, and twisted songs updating Beefheart's distinctive avant-blues style for a new era. The opening title track is probably the best one on here, Beefheart and the Magic Band creating a piece which is at once addictively danceable and yet, at the same time, completely bizarre. At points the use of slide guitar seems to fit in interestingly with the approach of new wave groups such as Talking Heads and Devo, whose unusual, angular musical styles perhaps owe a little thing or two to Beefheart.