Cargo Records

Vs

MOB's second and final studio album was released in fall of 1982, just months before they broke up. The band were at the pinnacle of their songwriting and performing skills.

‘Vs.’ is a strange and exciting record, full of depth and harmonic color. Unlike its predecessor, it begins slowly, with a fever dream of guitar workouts, drone and tremelo, in “Circles,” “Trem Two” and “Dead Pool.” The album pivots around the central track, “Mica,” perhaps the band’s finest moment — about a woman’s descent into unreality and madness. At the end, ‘Vs.’ expands with the triumphant melodic anthems “The Ballad Of Johnny Burma” and “That’s How I Escaped My Certain Fate.” The remastered album contains the 4 bonus tracks that were on the prior Ryko CD issue, plus a never-before-seen DVD of the afternoon set from the final show on March 12, 1983. One of the most important rock albums of the ‘80s, unavailable on CD for 3 years, and out of print on vinyl since the 1980s. Bonus DVD contains the entire afternoon set from the final show in Boston in 1983. Fully remastered from the original half-inch tapes. 32-page booklet containing ephemera, photos, and interviews with the band on the making of the album. Vinyl is true all-analog, re-cut in person by George Marino at Sterling Sound. HQ-180 pressing at RTI; thick Stoughton gatefold sleeve with tipped-in booklet. Vinyl comes with DVD and MP3 coupon. “The almost-pop architecture is opposed by almost-Wagnerian sonic density, a dichotomy between blueprint and chaos the competition indicated by the album’s title.”

Track Listing

1 Secrets
2 Train
3 Trem Two
4 New Nails
5 Dead Pool
6 Learn How
7 Mica
8 Weatherbox
9 Ballad Of Johnny Burma
10 Einstein's Day
11 Fun World
12 That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate
13 Laugh The World Away
14 Forget
15 Progress
16 OK, No Way