Sponge have announced a compilation of early recordings entitled Electric Cattle Gods – The Lost Tracks. It arrives November 14th via Cleopatra Records.
The album also includes two newly recorded songs, one being “Wet Brain,” which can be streamed now. The brooding post-grunge track is steeped in the band’s signature sonic characteristics: deliberate and forceful percussion, dynamic stabs of guitar, and the recognizable drawl of singer Vinnie Dombroski.
If that song is a document of present-day Sponge, the remainder of the upcoming comp is a flashback to where they came from, before they were even called Sponge. As the story goes, the Detroit band — originally known as Loudmouth in a cameo during the film Point Break — had reinvented itself under the moniker Electric Cattle Gods in 1992.
That band name was to be emblazoned across the marquee of the now-shuttered Ritz Concert Hall on Gratiot and Frazho in Roseville, Michigan. But club owner Joe Sgrol had to inform the upstart group: “We don’t have enough letters for that!”
The band replied: “Do you have enough letters for ‘Sponge’?” And it turns out Sgrol did.
The upcoming compilation contains 11 never-before-heard demos and rehearsal recordings from before that exchange, during the short-lived Electric Cattle Gods era. Some would later be recorded for the band’s 1994 major label debut Rotting Piñata, among them “Drownin,’” Sponge’s breakout hit “Molly (16 Candles),” the B-side “Cowboy Eyes,” and more.
Stream “Wet Brain” below, and see the artwork and tracklist for Electric Cattle Gods – The Lost Tracks, which can be pre-ordered on vinyl and CD via Cleopatra Records.
Electric Cattle Gods – The Lost Tracks Artwork:
Electric Cattle Gods – The Lost Tracks Tracklist:
01. In The Name Of God
02. Velocity 555
03. Nadja Hello
04. Slower Suicide
05. Cowboy Eyes
06. Blowz
07. Welcome Home
08. Down In Texas
09. Wet Brain
10. Desert Low
11. Molly (16 Candles)
12. Drownin’
13. Gal
