In a Village Voice review Francis Davis lazily manages to work both of the tiredest cliches about Captain Beefheart into one sentence, as well as implying that anyone that he "reached" must not have heard Howlin' Wolf and Ornette Coleman--

"Except for a few cuts from "Trout Mask Replica" Beefheart's primitivist dada never reached me, maybe because I'd already heard Howlin' Wolf and Ornette Coleman, and as inspired an idea as it was to conflate them, Beefheart never pulled it off."

That "few cuts from Trout Mask Replica" is an unconvincing bit of oneupmanship. Better "except for side two of the Spotlight Kid" or "except for the charming instrumental "A Carrot is as Close as a Rabbit Gets to a Diamond", but I guess he couldn't be bothered to look anything up.

The records themselves seem quite interesting examples of contemporary jazz's recent trend of genteel rock interpretations.