HUMB: the original "sound of breaking up and sight of middle finger to the industry"

AMAZING!  After all these years, The Prayer Chain has released "Humb" in its entirety...this is the album that  the record label rejected, and became the weird watermark  and...well, mercurial... album, "Mercury,"

One famous observer notes about "Mercury", "you can hear the band break up on the record, you can see them extend a warm and heartfelt middle finger to the industry."  That quote is perhaps even more relevant to "Humb."  (maybe even a  double bird).

Thanks to Fr. Ryan the PunkMonk for the hot tip (his comments here).

Many ancient bets have now been settled, and arguments about what this was like...if it even existed...



Here's what The Prayer Chain wiki has to say about the band and "new" album:

The Prayer Chain was a 1990s Christian alternative rock band. The band has been called "the epitome of the Christian underground".^[1] The Prayer Chain was known for producing moody, angst-ridden music which was, in turn, the result of creative differences within the band and with their record label.^[2]Their first album was recorded with Steve Hindalong at Neverland Studios and was entitled The Neverland Sessions. This was their first release, independent. After signing to Reunion Records they put out The Whirlpool EP and started touring, while focusing on their first LP Shawl released in 1993. After extensive national and international shows they started working on Mercury, which was released in 1995. This album, which engineer Chris Colbert has described by saying, "you can hear the band break up on the record, you can see them extend a warm and heartfelt middle finger to the industry"^[3] was their last CD, not to mention some rarities following. The band did a reunion show in Chicago in 1998, then the Gene Eugene tribute show in 2000, but other than some local California shows and their 2003 reunion shows at Cornerstone Festival and the Flevo Festival in The Netherlands, they are finished.^[4]The band has released some of their work & rarities on the Bandcamp website. Most notably, they released the original version of their album Mercurytitled Humb, ending years of speculation between fans as to what the original album exactly was. The original version was sent to their record labelReunion Records in 1994 and the band were subsequently told to go back into the studio to write more songs, "something they could sell". The most evident differences between Mercury and Humb are the absence of popular track Sky High (which along with Friend or Foe was written after the record label rejecting the original version of the album) and the inclusion of Chalk, Antarctica and Loverboy (all which eventually appeared on the albumAntarctica), as well as an altered track order. The mix is somewhat different as well, considered to be a darker mix of the album. ^[5]

See my previous posts on this band here 

But here is the banned album....in full.  STILL not ready for prime time: