Whatever your opinion of Kip Winger, especially following last year’s Firefest 3 histrionics, there can be no doubting that he wrote and recorded some of the best and most instantly recognisable melodic rock songs of the late 80s / early 90s. 

In Demo Anthology, he has gathered together all of the demo versions of Winger songs he has ever written and put them all out on this one recording, along with the demos for 10 tracks which have never previously been released.  

In all you get 37 tracks on two discs for your hard earned, which is a pretty decent package, by anyone’s standards. In fact virtually every track from the first 3 albums is here, the only exclusions being due to the fact that some songs were recorded for the first time in the actual studio sessions, hence no demos, as such, were ever made. 

All of your favourites are here and very much in the same versions which appeared eventually on their respective albums. Obviously by the time these demos were recorded, they had a very clear idea of how they wanted them to sound and therefore just recreated that in the studio when the time came. The only thing that these demos have over the final product is sometimes a raw energy that didn’t quite translate. 

Assuming you are all familiar with the studio albums, I’ll give you a quick run down of the “new” tracks. First up is “Only Love”, a typically late 80s sounding up-tempo rocker. “Star Tripper” has that trademark Winger sound and vibe. 

CD2 kicks off with four more of the unreleased tracks, the first being “All I Ever Wanted”, a groovy mid-tempo rocker which has a great instrumental break in the middle which would have sounded brilliant with a full studio beefed up sound. “Skin Tight” picks up the pace somewhat, before “Someday Someway” slows things right back down in the form of a ballad. “Never” again features a trademark Winger sound as well as some typically great playing from Reb Beach. 

Given the way this anthology is structured to mirror the original running orders of the studio albums, with the unreleased songs from each album appearing at the end, I am presuming that the last 4 tracks were all written around the time of the Pull release. The strength of these four tracks underline just how superb an album Pull is and why it is rightly held as a somewhat under-rated classic by many melodic rock fans.  

For me, these four tracks are easily the four strongest of the unreleased tracks. “Written In The Wind” must have been close to inclusion, even on Pull, as it is the best of all the unreleased tracks in my opinion. Pretty much the same could be said of “Until There Was You”, another really good track which deserves its chance to be heard at long last. Both “Without Warning” and “Give Me More” would easily have made the running order of many an album released at the time. 

Overall this release represents great value for money and is worth getting for the previously unreleased tracks alone, especially those from the Pull era. It’s also interesting to hear demo versions of songs you’ve come to know and love over the years and acts as a great reminder as to why Winger are a multi-platinum selling band.

Paul Williams