For long-time readers of the page and/or Geordie rock music fans who were kicking about on the “Hippy Square” in the nineties, XLR8R are a band you may have heard of. Playing fairly regularly across the city and surrounds and winners of at least one Radio 1 Rock War (including one night when most of their fans were at a gig so couldn’t get to phones to their votes!), they released a few demos and a full album.
Guitarist Ed Box has just re-released a lot of this material with some remastering and tweaks to the sound. The album, Inner Oceans, can be purchased from three locations and contains an additional seven tracks which are plucked from various demos (including three of the four songs on Mechanics of the Mind).
If you want FLAC with its additional quality then head for CDbaby and a $10.99 pricetag for the lot. Failing that, Amazon and iTunes are also carrying the album and both charge £7.99.
Additionally, Ed has compiled a collection called Demolition 1990-1997. This contains eleven tracks, similarly remastered, from before and after the original Inner Oceans release. Some come from the final XLR8R demo, others I’ve not seen before. However, there is no crossover with this release and the bonus songs on the re-released album so feel free to buy them all!
Demolition 1990-1997 is available from Bandcamp and I’ve embedded a player below for you to listen to. The songs I know are definitely that bit better produced than the originals, though that may be due to my old tapes being played to Hell and back… It’s only £3 for the whole lot of them, as well. Bargain. Probably less than one of those tapes back in the day!
As an old fan, this is a great pair of releases though it’s a shame that it’s not comprehensive (unless Ed’s renamed a couple of tracks). There are some songs amongst them that I don’t recognise and a handful that are missing. The Ultimate Sensation demo, for instance, is still sadly only available to those with an old cassette deck and a refusal to throw out old stuff. Well, unless you follow this link… ;)
Ed Box: official
