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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
MOTTS CAPERS, May 9, 2002
Definitely one of the wackiest albums ever recorded, every track is an absolute corker. The whole album was put onto tape in 5 days of madness at Advisions studios London.
For the sessions Guy Stevens the bands original mentor was brought back after not being at the controls for the bands previous album "Wildlife" (which the band themselves had already dubbed mildlife) Guy arrived at the studio with engineer Andy Johns, who was feeling no pain having just come away from the Rolling Stones, armed with a case of Vino Calapso and dressed as Zoro with cape, mask and sword, insisting the tracks were all laid down in one take. "Brain Capers" (featuring the Brain Caper Kids) as the album became known, had an amazing atmosphere with last gasp energy capturing Mott in a wild and manic mood, predating punk rock, the overall feel of Brain Capers was barely controlled chaos, but it remains a brilliant and crucial album. Once described as the great lost hard rock L.P. of all time, the record drew a line in the sand between sixties and seventies music (recorded in 1971 six months before Bowie gave Mott "All The Young Dudes") revealing almost everything called rock and the subsequent punk movement six years later to be nothing short of fraudulent, after just one listen to this album you can clearly hear where "The Sex Pistols" and "The Damned" got their influences.
Opening track "Death May Be Your Santa Claus" is a pounding rocker with fearsome guitars, wailing organ, a catchy hook, and carrying a trademark message of defiance.
Tracks two and three were imaginative and tasteful covers versions of Dion Dimuccis auto biographical anti drug song "Your Own Backyard" and the Young bloods neglected classic "Darkness Darkness" featuring Mick Ralphs on vocals and contained some excellent guitar. Mott had the panache to re-interpret other writers material with feeling and understanding.
"The Journey", a sad introspective masterful ballad, some eight minutes long was Mott equivalent of Zeppelin's "Stairway To Heaven", building to a dramatic conclusion. The Journey started life as a poem, before becoming the central piece of Mott's stage act, demonstrating Hunter is a writer who has made a major contribution to rock music. The song was also a personal favorite of Verden Allen, who's keyboard playing excelled throughout Brain Capers most notably on this opus.
"Sweet Angeline" is a brilliant all out rocker, with Hunter adopting Dylanesque vocals, and is still in his solo live set today.
"Second Love" was Verden Allen's first song recorded by Mott the Hoople and fair plucks at the old heartstrings.
The penultimate track "The Moon Upstairs" is one of the most powerful tracks that Mott ever recorded. The song was unquestionably six years ahead of its time being a frightening "New Wave" fuzz tone premonitions that musically and lyrically rendered late seventies "Punk Rock" tone clumsy, and lacking in any real substance.
Brian Capers coda was a two minute instrumental piece named "The Wheel Of The Quivering Meat Conception" which was actually nothing more than the climax from a frantic jam from one of the sessions from "The Journey" a fine way to close the album.
Mott the Dog.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Years before the Sex Pistols or Clash, September 8, 1999
By A Customer
This is one of the all-time great British punk rock albums, even if that genre wouldn't even be "invented" for another half decade. "Brain Capers" is the sound of a very angry, frustrated working class band railing out against a world in which it didn't fit. The seething contempt of "Death May Be Your Santa Claus" and "The Moon Upstairs" ("we ain't bleeding you, we're feeding you/but you're too f***ing slow!") wasn't topped in raw anger by anything on the more controversial "Never Mind the Bollocks." Yet this album also has poignant moments like "Sweet Angeline" (a hint of great future Mott piano-based rockers) and the cover of Dion's junkie lament "Your Own Backyard."Oddly, this about-to-implode band was rescued after this album by David Bowie, glammed up, and went on to some commercial success for a couple of years. Mott the Hoople burned the candle at both ends in the early '70s, and arguably only made three good albums (this one, "All the Young Dudes," and "Mott")--but they're some of the greatest British rock albums ever. The Pistols, Clash, Damned, Gen X, etc., wouldn't exist without them.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Comes charging at you like a wild boar, September 13, 2001
The snarling opening cut, "Death May Be Your Santa Claus," stands beside "The Chase," which leads off the first Family album, as two of my favorite beginnings to classic rock albums. And what a classic this one is. Mott the Hoople not only prefigured the punk sound but drew a line in the sand, daring their more timid contemporaries to follow along. Few did, and even Mott the Hoople mellowed considerably when paired with their soon-to-be mentor David Bowie. I would give this recording 5 stars for guts and glory but about a 3 for sound quality. The CD is unaccountably muddy sounding in places and Ian Hunter's vocals are sometimes buried so deep in the mix you have to just forget about them.
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