Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band* – Mirror Man

About 52 minutes rumbling marking time!
(word word word word)

Wow! This record truly gets better with every listen. I have an early press and the instruments sound phenomenal-very natural and organic. This record truly reveals itself over time. It’s easy to see how krautrockers like Can might have been heavily influenced by this record. The drum sound is huge and simply hypnotic and pummeling. For me the weakest moments might be the Captain’s vocals. These aren’t proper songs-they’re jams-and such the vocals tend to be sporadic, aimless and not as dynamic as when utilized in more organized song structures like “Safe As Milk”. But nonetheless for people into avante-garage and psychedelia or krautrock this is the record for you. If you like Pere Ubu, Can, Red Crayola, etc. you’ll love this. Underrated is thrown around but this record truly is such. It seems simple and repetitive but it’s so much more when you take the time for multiple thoughtful listening. “Safe As Milk” is my favorite Beefheart record. This is my second favorite. Much better than “Trout Mask Replica” even though that is my third favorite. The Magic Band. What was in the water. The best vocals on this are on “Mirror Man” the song-truly bizarre and sound like Howlin Wolf singing in a whiskey induced black out-pure madness and I love it.

Can anyone please provide decent pics, as this is disgusting and does not help anyone!

Is this really a promo? Quality seems to have used white Buddha labels for stock copies in Canada.

Beyond "Safe As Milk" I'll never be a true Beefheart fan, and my collection only has a couple of his albums. "Mirror Man" is pretty good because it establishes strange blues music for each track, overlaid by Beefheart's vocal mystics. Musically there isn't a great amount of variation within each track. The 4 tracks of Mirror Man set "vibes" more than songs. So for what it is, it's fine, and I enjoy listening to it. But I would be lying if I didn't say Tarotplane and the title track didn't feel a bit _long_ after the 10-minute mark.

Agree with Musicfreak98 really excellent packaging and great sound which you would expect from a pressing from RTI....

The record itself is great but the packaging is not so. I thought ‘die cast’ meant the frame would be made of a metal however it’s all just cardboard. Hard to get in and out to store, poor box design.

Yet another miserable Rhino/Scorpio reissue. Pressing quality is bad. Record (bought new) was dirty, scuffed and warperd. Mastering is just as bad. Album sounds really muddy and very distorted. Approximately first 15 seconds of A1 sound scratchy, muffled and distorted. This is probably a pressing defect. Avoid!

1967 recording with incorrect date 1965 stated on reverse sleeve. Wrong line-up depicted on the front cover as well.

It says 65 on the back cover