Magic Dirt have announced they’ll be reissuing their 1998 album Young And Full Of The Devil in celebration of its 25th anniversary. The remastered record will land on Friday, 7th April through Emergency Music/Remote Control Records.
Young And Full Of The Devil was the band’s second album, recorded in a flurry in Birdland Studios over just 12 days in 1997. One of the more acclaimed records in the band’s back catalogue, it was the first album to feature lead guitarist Raul Sanchez – the Dirt’s original guitarist Dave Thomas departed due to creative differences in mid-1997.
Magic Dirt: ‘Rabbit With Fangs’
The album contains some of the band’s best-loved tracks, including ‘Rabbit With Fangs’ and ‘She-Riff’. “We went in there and just had a good time you know. Just worked like 15, 17 hours a day,” the band’s late bass player Dean Turner said of the studio sessions in an interview with Inpress magazine in 1997.
According to Turner, the band smoked a lot of hash and took some acid during the recording process. “Like there’d be three people running around the balcony with half their clothes off while someone was in the other room doing a guitar overdub,” he told Inpress.
The album caused a surge in popularity for the Geelong band, and they spent the last part of 1997 supporting Silverchair on their Freak Show tour.
“This record stands apart because in the purest sense, it’s essentially an art record,” album producer Lindsay Gravina said in a statement. “This album captured the whole zeitgeist of those times, a fucking apocalyptic catharsis, for us personally, but also for the times in general – a last hurrah for a scene that had signalled its peak, and who better to call it?”
The remastered album is out digitally already – you can pre-order vinyls over here.
Further Reading
Tent Pole Review – Pavement Headline Inaugural Geelong Music Bash
Why Aus Rock Darlings Magic Dirt Are Happy To Keep Playing The Hits
