OK, let's look at this new Def Leppard album.
Def Leppard are one of those bands that the casual Rock fan probably will have heard of but will be unable to name more than about three of their songs. This probably isn't helped by the band's (or maybe just Joe Elliott's) idiotic decision to keep most of their back catalogue off services such as Spotify and iTunes, making it even harder to discover just how great this band were during the first couple of years of their career. However, if you have listened to & enjoyed a wide range of this band's music released between now and the mid-80's, this album might be to your tastes.
The eponymous album is named so because the track listing is essentially supposed to capture the essence of Def Leppard throughout their career, containing a little bit of Pyromania, a little bit of Slang and a generous helping of Hysteria. This is glaringly obvious from the album opener, "Let's Go", a song that I believe was deliberately written to conjure memories of better songs from the band such as "Pour Some Sugar On Me" or their last single "Undefeated". It's a decent song but a tepid introduction, especially with a name like "Let's Go" that implies action and excitement when performed by a band such as Def Leppard.
I wish I could say it's just the album opener that falls a bit flat but there are a few other deflated notes here and there too. For starters, Joe Elliott's singing lack the power that a good Hard Rock vocalist needs and there are several songs that suffer as a result of almost bored sounding vocals ("Invincible"). Then there are generic Hard Rock songs designed to be listened to a few times and then forgotten ("Wings Of An Angel"). At the end of the day, this isn't a triumphant comeback album, nor is it an experimental journey into the 21st Century for these 80's Rockers. It's a beefed up nostalgia trip for fans of heavily produced Arena Rock.
However, considering this is what the band pretty much promised during the promotion for Def Leppard a few months ago, I can hardly hold this against them. True to their word, there are many scattered fragments of the band's better known material peppering these songs such as the use of Hysteria era guitar synths and tones in "Dangerous" and "We Belong" respectively, not to mention the obligatory power ballad in the form of "Last Dance". Classic Def Leppard fans won't be disappointed and it may even reignite your passion for the band's older works if you've since gone off their material.
Not only that but the band have seemingly taken heavy inspiration from other Rock songs during the writing process for this album. "Blind Faith" is eerily similar to Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" at times and "Man Enough" flat out copies most of the structure to Queen's "Another One Bites The Dust" (even if, in my opinion, it does a far better job than Queen's song did). In fact, it's worth mentioning that Rick Savage's bass playing is possibly one of the album's shining positives, not just because of "Man Enough".
On top of this jaunt down memory lane, there are a couple of tracks that stand out due to trying something a bit different, such as acoustic number "Battle Of My Own" which achieves the impossible by making an acoustic song sound powerful. There's also "Energized" which gives the band a bit of a modern twist with electronic drum effects that will likely divide opinion on whether this is a good track. It doesn't sound like it was used as a gimmick to entice new fans (unlike the use of dubstep in The 2nd Law - Muse) but when paired with the aforementioned flat vocals, it's unlikely to strike a chord.
Def Leppard (album) won't win many new fans, if any at all. What it will do is give you several solid driving songs or stadium anthems to bang your head or stamp your feet to and since that was likely the band's intention, they've done a good job. It's not an amazing album but it is one I'd recommend to friends and family if they just wanted a collection of glamorised Hard Rock with a track listing that reads like Spinal Tap's discography to play in the background of their daily activities.
A lot of work has clearly gone into this album and I didn't dislike the majority of the songs so it's definitely not bad; it's just not great either so don't expect much from it. My rating for the album is 6/10 due to the good quality but lack of standout amazing songs. I would recommend giving it a listen before purchasing but you'll be lucky to find all the songs anywhere online for free.
After all, Def Leppard don't want you stealing their music because stealing something that someone else has created and listening to it for your own personal enjoyment is far worse than stealing something that someone else has created and tweaking it just enough to get away with calling it your own song, shortly before making damn sure people pay before listening to it. These guys would never think of doing that.
EDIT: The album is now available on Spotify, although the rest of their original material isn't at the time of posting this edit.
No comments:
Post a Comment