Last year NON released the bands first album after returning from a five year hiatus, the full length album, “From Buckeye To Beardsley”. The album was what I consider NON’s strongest release to date, and included twenty tracks in a variety of musical genres. The bands newest release is “Waiting for Tomorrow - The Deluxe Edition”. The CD features all of the original songs released on NON’s debut album, “Waiting for Tomorrow”, back in 2004, plus a dozen bonus tracks.

What I really loved about this album was the fact that NON included the demo recordings of material that has never been released to the public, and the demo versions of the songs are very interesting. The demo version on NON’s popular song, “Runaway” is similar to what was released on the original “Waiting for Tomorrow”, but the song has a slightly slower tempo, with melodic backing vocals not included on the final version of the song. It drastically changes the whole dynamics of the song, and was great to hear how the band evolved during the recording process. The demo version of “True Love” has a much more raw, punk rock sound, and is not as poppy, and features rough distorted guitar solos, and the demo version of “Broken” is very similar, but the vocals are delivered in a slightly different way. The band also included the demo version of “Waiting for Tomorrow”, which was surprising, because the final version of the song was just recently released on “From Buckeye To Beardsley”. I can honestly say that I like the demo version a bit more than the final recording, even though the two versions are almost exactly identical.

The deluxe edition also features a previously unreleased pop punk tune called “Telephone”, which has a catchy melodic hook, and follows the signature style that the band had throughout “Waiting for Tomorrow”. Another previously unreleased track that was included on the deluxe edition is “Fat Girls - ThickerFattenLarderHeffer”. The song starts off with a cow-punk feel, just like the acoustic final version, but drastically changes into a raw, unfiltered punk rock song. The unique version is a big change, but NON made it work in a comical punk rock way.

The deluxe version also contains two tracks from the out of print, “Quickerdrunkenlouderharder” EP, and a live version of “The Poor Misfortune of a Dimwitted Lemming” and two different live versions of “Ode to the Drink”. The first live version is the punk rock version, and the second live version is the original Irish folk style. Overall I thought that the deluxe version was one hell of a release for the band, and it’s a CD that fans are really going to love.