Spike in Vain - Jesus Was Born in a Mobile Home - 2xLP / 2x Col. LP

Ready for some more racket from the titans of the tritone? The deans of decay? The earls of entropy? Until recently it was unknown how prolific Cleveland’s Spike In Vain were in their three year run, roughly Fall 1982 through Fall 1985. Had all the group’s songs been recorded, they would’ve filled five LPs handily. While only the debut album Disease Is Relative, compilation appearances, and a virtually unknown cassette were issued during their run, 2021 saw the band’s unreleased second album Death Drives A Cadillac pulled out from its secret lair, and 2023 will see the release of the Jesus Was Born In A Mobile Home cassette via this much expanded double vinyl edition. Upping the original’s twelve track program with an additional fifteen unreleased or rare tracks, this compilation provides a panoramic view of this mercurial, many-headed beast of absurdity, discord, and death. This release is loaded with surprises for even die-hard fans. Among other highlights, there’s a nine minute version of “Opus.” While the recording on Disease Is Relative is essentially three short songs smushed together, this later live version doubles that, with all new material seamlessly tacked onto the original. “Winter’s Black Hand” is a shocking outtake from the second album with the same insane, harrowing quality as “Children In The Subway.” There’s a 1982 rehearsal recording of “Tenement Housing,” the closest the band ever came to a straight up punk song. Or the rambling, shambling, and devastating “Drunk And Ugly Soul Food (As I Understand It)” from an early 1985 radio session. Along with other live recordings of songs that never saw the inside of a studio and a few more outtakes, Jesus also gathers stray songs from compilation albums with much improved sound. The majority of the tracks here were mastered from the original reels, while others had to be rescued from cassettes. Veteran engineer John Golden has done a knockout job dealing with the wide variety of source materials, lending it cohesion without sacrificing the skullsplitting rawness of some tracks.

Tracks

1. Little Voice That Betrays
2. Lullabye Nocturne
3. You're Gonna Watch Me
4. The Road To New Guinea (God Man Up!)
5. Ugly And Damaged (Live 1983)
6. Winter's Black Hand
7. Count Basie's Ghost Pt. 2
8. Michael Landon Pukes On Your TV
9. Ten Hail Marys
10. Killing Frame Of Mind
11. Strangeland County
12. Helga At The Square Dance
13. Seconds
14. Rejected By No. 12 (1983 Version)
15. Tenement Housing
16. Love Isn't Hollow
17. Ugly And Damaged
18. The Funeral
19. Glass Doorknob
20. A Grave Left Behind
21. Opus I + II 22. Swamp Baby Blues
23. Real Cool Time
24. Deathstyle
25. E.K.G.
26. Dogsleds In Heaven
27. Drunk And Ugly Soul Food (As I Understand It)