I'm not advocating for piracy or posting any links here BUT the album leaked and its....wild. Skipping around it's very much a mix of genres. Country ballads, LOTS of string arrangements. Closest album I'd compare it to is X in that they're not trying to damn hard to sound like themselves. There are quite a few tracks that do but it's bringing out the songwriter element of the band on some of these tracks.

I think at 15 tracks I'll eventually realize there's a lot of fat that should have been cut but I'm really digging it, it's taking some ballsy changes.

DeF LEppARd
 

I listened to it today on YouTube. My favourites so far are “Take What You Want”, “SOS Emergency” and “U Rok Mi”. I know what you mean, there are some very interesting directions taken with many of the songs. Very nuancy and unpredictable at times as well. It’s probably not as experimental as Slang or X but is really sounds like a band who are just having fun and letting creativity flow this time. I liked my first listen very much but, like with the previous say 3 albums, it kinda looses its spark during the last 3rd. “Open Your Eyes” for example, I just found boring. There are a few ballads on there that don’t really do much for me but in my opinion, the last album to have any decent ballads was Euphoria.

Joe’s vocals are very on point here (he’s 62) and there are times where he really soars that it just hits me! They’re quite weak on the high notes for “Take What You Want” however. The trademark backing vocals are still as great as they ever were as well. The guitar solos, whilst very good, I don’t think are particularly stand-out and comparable to what we’ve heard on the previous 2 albums.

The whole album just sounds really “alive” and even though it’s very early at this stage, I’d say it’s a better effort than Def Leppard (2015 self-titled) and probably their best effort of all the albums they’ve put out within the last 20 years. In case people weren’t aware, the band wrote and recorded the album remotely during the pandemic and enjoyed it so much that they probably won’t make an album “the usual way” ever again. If future albums are anything like this I’m happy with that.

Since it's been on TV I'll post it:
Couldn't help, but think if Jon could still sound this good.

I gave it a few listens and it's a grower, However it needs to grow a lot, I still don't recognize many songs.
My instant favourite is Kick - it's fcukin' damn catchy! It has a Leppard sound but not a copycat of any of the previous songs plus it shows their love of the 1970s.

Take What You Want is one I'll end up liking but I don't like how it's trying hard to have the same elements as Rock Rock Til You Drop. I love that Viv and Phil both play the solo. And kudos to Joe for providing such live vocals.

Those that stuck and I remember their titles are SOS Emergency a U Rok Mi and then I love the last one or the one before that :)

On the other hand, the duet is terrible :(

Spot on summery. It really does remind me of X and it's probably their most diverse record. I love This Guitar. It's getting a mixed reaction from the fan base, but I think it has the potential to be a big song for them. It's just a little too early in the running order in my opinion. A lot of Phil's stuff is just usually too predictable, This Guitar being the exception. I do enjoy Kick too. Joe is a really underrated song writer, he just doesn't get to show it often in Leppard.

It's a strong record, but it's too long. Cut 3 of the weaker tracks and you have 12 tracks that makes their strongest record in a long time

After quite a few listens, this album needs some pruning. I was saying last night that I skip SOS Emergency because it's TOO Def Leppard. It reminds me a lot of Dangerous and I skip that for the same reason.

My biggest gripe is Phil's guitar playing. Predictable is the right word for his solo style. Stylistically he brought some songs to this one I never thought I'd hear from the band.

What would everyone's ideal 12 track version be?

Yup - that one is definitely one that I'd skip too.

I think it's his chorus melodies for me. I can usually tell a mile off that it's Phil. Agree 100% on his guitar playing, same thing over and over. I find Viv a much more interesting player, by a long way.

It will probably change, but

Take What You Want
Kick
Fire It Up
Liquid Dust
This Guitar
All We Need
Open Your Eyes
Angels (Can't Help You Now)
Lifeless
Unbreakable
Goodbye for Good This Time
From Here to Eternity

Viv has no songwriting credits on this record in the other hand, Phil dominates. I'd love to hear more of Viv's solos and guitar work.

No writing credits but Viv does get quite a few solos on the record. The last 3 songs all have Viv solos, and well as various bits elsewhere, but I agree he is fairly held back in Leppard.

"SOS Emergency" is one of my favourites (As is "Dangerous" from the previous album) but yeah, it's by-the-numbers. I suppose you've got to have enough familiarity in there. The song actually reminds me of "Hallucinate" from Songs from the Sparkle Lounge father than an "old-school" Def Leppard song.

There's a few songs on this album that "borrow" ideas from previous songs from the last 10 years or so. "U Rok Mi" has those "Sha!" sounds which they used on "Undefeated" and "Liquid Dust" uses similar guitar pull-offs used on the last bridge on "Let's Go". Maybe some of these songs are more "refined" versions of previous songs?

Completely agree. which is probably why none of the solos really stood out for me. No real surprises or spontaneity there.

I'm not sure what my ideal tracklist would be but I'd definitely leave out some, if not all, of the ballads. I feel some of them sound rather dated and 2000's rock/country-radio-sounding. They started writing "This Guitar" I believe back to 2003 which they eventually finished for this album so that would explain that one.

On repeated listens I feel the album is very patchy and could do with more rockers on there, more in keeping with "Take What You Want".

All that being said, I applaud them for being more adventurous with this album and that we are still getting new music from them. I hope it's not another 7 years before the next one.

I'd appreciate more new songs, miss Let's Get Rocked and I'mbit tired of Foolin' and not a fan of Excitable. BUT, this rocks!!! Joe's vocals are great and as a Viv's fan I really enjoyed him there.

Viv only had very shared credits on the previous album, too. Granted, he DID co-write Wings of an Angel, my favorite Def Leppard song since the 90s, but that one credited the full band minus Rick Allen.

Here's an interesting quote about that.

"The last two tracks on the album, Wings Of An Angel and Blind Faith, were written by the whole band - all five of us together in one room. But mostly we write on our own. Without wanting to sound poncey, we are all songwriters in our own right. We write differently when we write individually, and we write a certain way when we contribute to each other's songs. We're like Queen in that respect. I'm not saying I think we're as good as Queen - we're totally different. But what we do have in common with them is we all write individually. What that gives us is a massive amount of variety in our songs. And that really matters to us."

Viv wrote Work It Out from Slang alone, as well as Cruise Control, Only The Good Die Young and Gotta Let it Go from Sparkle Lounge. There's also a Slang bonus track 'All On Your Touch' with Viv being the sole writer again.

2015 was made in the midst of Viv getting cancer so I kind of understand why he wasn't as present. This one, I'm not sure.

Whelp, this is the exact info I was looking for, thanks!

Apparently Rick Allen didn’t play drums on this album.


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It's programmed drums. It's stated in the liner notes. This is nothing new. He didn't play the drums on Pyromania, apart from the cymbals. Hysteria was also mostly programmed as well I believe. Not sure about Adrenalize, but they used proper drums on Slang. I expect the albums following that were a mixture of both.

Yeah, I saw some vlogs going nuts about it but anyone with any basic knowledge of how he's done albums post and PRE arm loss..

Like I know there was a guest drummer on some of the YEAH! extra tracks but I don't think that was ever the norm.

I really liked the drum sound of this album. A lot of the previous albums just didn't do it for me drum wise.

Good to see some DL love up in here. I've been reading the last 3 pages or so and now that the new record has sunk in for the early buyers such as yourselves, would you recommend this as a purchase? My last DL album was 'Hysteria' and apart from a double disc greatest hits package which included the later singles I'm not up to speed with their post eighties work. Is the new album a good place to start for me? From what I gather here, there's some fat to be trimmed but ...

I don't check out albums online, I prefer buying on recommendation from fans and having the cd booklet in my hands on the first listen.

thanks

I would say Diamond Star Halos is neither a good or bad place to start if you've not checked out any post-Hysteria albums. I would personally skip the follow-up album Adrenalize, especially if you already have one of the greatest hits albums. You're not missing much there. I'd say your next purchases should be RetroActive (1993), Slang (1996) and Euphoria (1999).

RetroActive is an odds'n'sods album of b-sides and then-newly finished tracks from previous album sessions but works rather well as an album in it's own right. If it WERE an actual studio album, it would have been a more worthy successor to Hysteria.

Slang is where the band started going in a rather different direction musically. It's more experimental and dabbles in different genres but at it's core is a more organic, stripped-down version of the band and it's also where their songwriting ability really started to shine. Lyrically it is much darker and more introspective. It is not album to jump into if you're in a "Pour Some Sugar on Me"/"Animal"/"Rock of Ages" mood. If I were to make an analogy, it's Def Leppards "These Days". You'll either really dig this album or just not care for it. If your greatest hits album is a 2CD set from 2004 onward, you'd have heard the title track (ironically the more Leppard-like track on the album) and "Work It Out".

Euphoria is were the band returned to their more familiar sound and borrowing ideas from previous works (including Slang to a degree) whilst having the songs stand up on their own and sounding slightly more modern. This is the album with the song "Promises" which is included on any double-disc greatest hits album and still gets played live now and again. It's probably the most immediate-sounding post-Hysteria but I think it's important to hear RetroActive and Slang first so you can appreciate the "journey" to Euphoria.

As for anything after that it's hard to truly recommend anything. X (2002) much like Slang started to mix things up again, genre-wise, but this time going for a more pop direction. Has it's moments and Joe Elliotts vocals are awesome here, but the songs are mostly lacking flavour and musically felt rather dumbed down.

Songs from the Sparkle Lounge (2008 ) and Def Leppard (2015) are both more familiar-sounding affairs and have some good songs between them, but I feel most of it is forgettable. Diamond Star Halos (2022), as some of us have said already, is not as experimental per-se but does take some liberties with some of the compositions and what the average person would normally expect from a Def Leppard album.

In all honesty, the best person to ask here is Bleeding Purist as he "lived" through their entire career and is much more articulate than I am in terms of describing each album. He's posted loads of great stuff here over the years so worth searching through them.

thanks so much, your post has been a great help. I know what albums to buy next now and I won't be starting with the new one. First purchase : 'RetroActive'.

UK 2023 tour dates with Mötley Crüe;

https://t.co/9cDcjg1AXv

Ambitious doing Wembley stadium. Neither act sold out their last shows in UK.
Crue didn't sell out Wembley Arena and Leppard the o2

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Drastic Symphonies
 

New album “Drastic Symphonies” released May 19th

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/...webp_QL85_.jpg

https://ultimateclassicrock.com/def-...phonies-album/



It included several tracks combined with classic pieces by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Track Listing
1. “Turn To Dust”
2. “Paper Sun”
3. “Animal”
4. “Pour Some Sugar on Me” (Stripped Version)
5. “Hysteria”
6. “Love Bites”
7. “Goodbye For Good This Time”
8. “Love”
9. “Gods Of War”
10. “Angels (Can’t Help You Now)”
11. “Bringin’ On the Heartbreak”
12. “Switch 625”
13. “Too Late for Love”
14. “When Love & Hate Collide”
15. “Kings Of the World”
16. “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad” (Not on all versions)

Interesting track list with “Turn to Dust” from Slang as the opening track. Totally out of the blue much like Diamond Star Halos was last year. Not sure this will be my cup of tea but an interesting move nonetheless.

In more saddening news, Rick Allen was attacked outside of a hotel in Florida recently.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...er/ar-AA18IfUg

This tracklist excites the hell out of me. Turn to Dust and Paper Sun, holy hell.

A couple of random choices but I really want to hear this.

DeF LEppARd
 

Amazon have a 2 disc set listed with the 2nd disc being a Blu Ray containing the entire album in Dolby Atmos.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Drastic-Sym...r%2C234&sr=1-3

I am intrigued by the random album tracks that have been selected for this album as well, but I'm not sure sampling the original recordings would have been the best way to go with something like this. I think a live album with an Orchestra à la Metallica's S&M album or KISS’ Symphony: Alive IV would be better.