Mott The Hoople - Brain Capers (Rhino Reserve)

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Rhino Reserve 180-Gram Black Vinyl Cut From Analog Tape
Release Date Oct 23, 2026
Pre-order Regular price $32.00
Pre-order Release Date: Oct 23, 2026
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Product details

  • Label Rhino
  • Format 1 x Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, 180 Gram, Black
  • Format details Rhino Reserve 180-Gram Black Vinyl Cut From Analog Tape
  • Media 1 x Vinyl
  • Release date Oct 23, 2026
  • Originally released 1971
  • Region US
  • Genres Rock
  • UPC 081227803568
Releases Oct 23, 2026

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Rhino Reserve 180-Gram Black Vinyl LP

This is the Rhino Reserve edition of Brain Capers, one of the Reserve titles in Rhino's Rocktober 2026 run of 54 limited-edition releases, issued through select brick-and-mortar record stores. It is a single 180-gram black LP. The sticker on the jacket states that the lacquers were cut from the original analog master by Matthew Lutthans at The Mastering Lab, and that the record was pressed in California at Fidelity Record Pressing, the Oxnard plant behind the Reserve series. The front cover is the US Atlantic design with the black mask. The original UK and Canadian covers left the mask off, and UK copies came with a real mask packed inside.

Rhino's sticker copy calls the band's fourth album "the cult classic that predicted punk" and names "The Moon Upstairs" and "Sweet Angeline." Island issued it in the UK in November 1971 as ILPS 9178, and Atlantic followed in the US in January 1972 as SD 8304. It is the only Mott the Hoople album that failed to chart in either country.

Guy Stevens was brought in to produce after the band's own self-produced sessions were shelved, and he plays piano on the record as well. Andy Johns engineered at Island's London studio across August and September 1971. The lineup is Ian Hunter, Mick Ralphs, Pete Watts, Dale "Buffin" Griffin and Verden Allen, with Jim Price adding trumpet to Allen's "Second Love." Two covers sit among the originals: "Your Own Backyard" by Dion DiMucci and Tony Fasce, and Jesse Colin Young's "Darkness, Darkness." The short closer, "The Wheel of the Quivering Meat Conception," fades in at the point where "The Journey" faded out.

The working title was AC/DC. The band settled on Brain Capers as a compromise between two later candidates, Brain Damage and Bizarre Capers. A line on the back cover dedicates the album to James Dean.

Tracklist

  1. Death May Be Your Santa Claus
  2. Your Own Backyard
  3. Darkness, Darkness
  4. The Journey
  5. Sweet Angeline
  6. Second Love
  7. The Moon Upstairs
  8. The Wheel of the Quivering Meat Conception

UPC: 081227803568
Label: Rhino
Release Date: 10.23.26
Format: Vinyl