TROUT MASK REPLICA

It was fictional guitarist David St. Hubbins who once said "It's such a fine line between stupid, and clever." And this album is an illustration of how easy it can be to fall on both sides at once. Trout Mask Replica can be both inspiring and insipid, and exceed at both. Where this album works is when the band is sowing the seeds of the oddly disjointed music that became one of the trademarks of The Magic Band. Where it doesn't work is when the band attempts a rock version of "free jazz". It sounds a lot like when my teenage son and his friends are sitting around, all playing different, unassociated riffs, no one listening to each other. I just don't think these guys, at this point in their careers have the chops for it.

Don Van Vliet's poetry here is just as hit or miss. At times it seems inspired. At others, it sounds very similar to some pseudo-intellectual ramblings of some drug addled teenagers I knew in high school.

But being about 50/50 hit and miss, and also originally being a double album, there is still an albums worth of good material here.