{"id":41440,"date":"2009-04-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-04-06T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/brain-capers\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T11:20:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T11:20:12","slug":"brain-capers","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/brain-capers\/","title":{"rendered":"Brain Capers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The year 1972 was do or die time for Mott The Hoople.\u00a0 The brilliant promise of their self-titled debut<\/a> had been steadily dissipated by the disappointingly sloppy Mad Shadows<\/i><\/a> and the borderline incoherent Wildlife<\/i><\/a>.\u00a0 Were they the next coming of the Rolling Stones, a swaggering band of rock and roll giants, or merely an untamable five-headed beast more prone to dashing expectations than living up to them?<\/p>\n

A little of each, of course.<\/p>\n

The pressure had to be weighing on the boys \u2013 Ian Hunter (vocals\/piano), Mick Ralphs (guitar\/vocals), Verden Allen (organ), Overend Watts (bass) and Dale \u201cBuffin\u201d Griffin<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> (drums) — as they went into the studio to record their next disc.\u00a0 In today\u2019s short-attention span world, Atlantic<\/st1:place> would most likely never have backed them making a third album, let alone a fourth.\u00a0 But back in the day, bands with promise had a little more rope, and Mott yanked on theirs as hard as they could for as long as they could manage to keep things together.<\/p>\n

Regardless, there can be no doubt that a lot was riding on the quality of the album that would become Brain Capers<\/i>.\u00a0 For the band to remain viable, the album had to be great, and it had to sell.<\/p>\n

One out of two isn\u2019t bad.<\/p>\n

Brain Capers<\/i>, goofy name aside, is in fact one of the lost rock and roll classics of the \u201970s, the album that finally fulfilled the promise the group demonstrated on Mott The Hoople<\/i>.\u00a0 Here Ian Hunter found his voice as both a singer and a songwriter, and in \u201cThe Journey\u201d and \u201cSweet Angeline,\u201d wrote not one but two of what over time grew into a library of great songs. \u00a0Here Mick Ralphs gave his career-best lead vocal performance (on, of all things, country-folk singer Jesse Colin Young\u2019s \u201cDarkness Darkness\u201d) while consistently delivering the kind of rock-solid guitar work that would characterize his next career in Bad Company.\u00a0 Most of all, here Mott finally plays like you always knew they could, tight and sassy from start to finish, writing songs like Dylan, rocking out like the Stones and delivering more self-deprecating charm than either has ever mustered.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The album kicks off rather ominously with \u201cDeath May Be Your Santa Claus,\u201d the rhythm section starting alone and seeming to take a moment to warm up to the tune before the other three storm in and take control.\u00a0 Allen\u2019s very Jon Lord\/Deep Purple organ work counterpoints Ralphs\u2019 muscular riffing and Hunter plays ringleader with all the required panache on this thundering track.<\/p>\n

You know an album is good when even the secondary tracks are rock-solid.\u00a0 \u201cYour Own Backyard\u201d feels like a lost Dylan number early with Allen\u2019s organ dominating, but the song steadily gains power as it builds and Hunter sings it with total confidence.\u00a0 Then it\u2019s Ralphs\u2019 turn with his churning, memorable take on \u201cDarkness Darkness,\u201d and then\u2026 wow.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Journey\u201d is simply stunning, a nine-minute Hunter piece that holds interest all the way, starting out solo at the piano and executing a winding, steady build all the way to its magnificent conclusion.\u00a0 The band\u2019s growth can be seen in the way they chose to let the song continually evolve, advancing and then falling back, rather than having it degenerate into a big jam.\u00a0 In 9:12<\/st1:time>, there isn\u2019t a wasted note.<\/p>\n

Thirty-six years later, \u201cSweet Angeline\u201d remains a staple of Ian Hunter\u2019s songbook, a smashing rocker of a love song that\u2019s tight and sweet and just about note-perfect.\u00a0 It\u2019s so giddily sharp that you forgive the guys for adding out-of-place horns to the ensuing ballad \u201cSecond Love.\u201d\u00a0 Which you promptly forget all about once \u201cThe Moon Upstairs\u201d \u2013 a rare Hunter-Ralphs co-write \u2013 kicks you in gut with its stomping riff and throat-grabbing drive.<\/p>\n

The only real sour note on the album is producer Guy Steven\u2019s bad joke of a final track, in which he yanks a 76-second outtake of the band goofing around chaotically with the middle section of \u201cThe Journey\u201d from the cutting room floor, throws it on the album as track eight and calls it \u201cThe Wheel Of The Quivering Meat Conception.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s one of those gags that might have seemed funny at four in the morning, but falls flat in the new light of dawn.
<\/o:p><\/p>\n

And now, to the catch.\u00a0 When the dust cleared, Mott The Hoople had released the best album of their young, precarious career \u2013 and no one bought it.\u00a0 Oh sure, the critics and the diehards loved it, but the vast public beyond those cozy circles remained mostly indifferent to the British quintet with the ferocious rep and the odd name.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

With those results, the band should have been dead in the water — and in fact, they were.\u00a0 If not for the white knight (duke?) waiting in the wings to rescue the band from oblivion, Brain Capers<\/i> would have been the triumphant epilogue to Mott The Hoople, rather than only the final scene of the band\u2019s tumultuous first act. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":29825,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8377],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-41440","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-mott-the-hoople","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41440"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}