Geddes Axe formed in 1979, being inspired by local Yorkshire acts Def Leppard and Saxon (who the band shared a stage with during their formative years) and split already in 1983 after signing a major record deal and an already recorded debut album, which never came out. »Aftermath« now collects the entire catalogue of Geddes Axe material. In detail that’s the first two 7” singles, the »Escape From New York« 12” EP plus never issued demo tracks such as “When The Lights Go Out”, “Life In London”, “Into The Wilderness” and “Valley Of The Kings”. 12 songs (50 minutes) of pure bona fide NWOBHM in total. Martin Wilson explains: “»Aftermath« contains the songs from the three vinyl releases but it’s also given us the opportunity to release recordings of four other songs that were previously unreleased. I’m pleased we’ve managed to get these out because I reckon they’re just as good as the others – ‘Valley Of The Kings’, particularly, is very representative of Geddes Axe’s style. ‘When The Lights Go Out’, ‘Life In London’, ‘Into The Wilderness’ and ‘Valley Of The Kings’ were originally recorded along with new versions of the ones released on vinyl as a sort of ‘demo’ album. It was around the time of »Sharpen Your Wits« during the time we had Nick Brown and John Burke in the band but while we still had Andy Millard on vocals. »Aftermath« collects about everything the band has ever recorded. There’s still the odd live bootleg and one or two other versions of these songs with other band members on – but, otherwise, that’s it. There were a couple of live recordings broadcast on the local radio station (Radio Hallam), including one supporting Saxon at Sheffield City Hall that would have been good to have now but they’ve just got lost over the years.” Quite out of the blue Geddes Axe received an invitation to play Brofest (UK) in 2016. For Martin Wilson this was the incentive to get back into shape: “Andy Barrott was approached about us doing it. I must admit, although a few people kept asking when we’d get back together, I never thought it’d happen. It’s essentially the Geddes Axe Mark 1 line-up: me, Andy Barrott and Andy Millard but with a couple of new musicians, namely Andy Ritson on bass and Craig Taylor on drums. Yes, we’re all really looking forward to it and are also going to do a private warm-up gig in Sheffield as part of the preparation. We’ll be sticking to the songs off the »Aftermath album for Brofest as we only have a limited amount of time. But in the future, who knows?”
