Album Review - Def Leppard - "Diamond Star Halos"

 

Let's be honest, I think we've all got a soft spot for Def Leppard really. The perennial stalwarts of the Britrock scene may have been responsible for some great albums and some...well, not so great ones down the years but you have to admire their sheer resilience and, as anyone who's ever listened to Joe Elliott's radio show will testify, he's a guy who knows his musical onions who you could just imagine having a good pint and a chat about decent rock music with down the pub.

Diamond Star Halos (with its T Rex referencing title) is the Leps' first album since 2015's Songs From The Sparkle Lounge which was a competent album even if it didn't quite have the knockout blow to elevate it up to the level of Pyromania, High 'n' Dry et al. The question is then - can Diamond Star Halos take things up a notch to deliver a genuinely great album from the band?

It's certainly a trademark Leps album from the four-to-the-floor opener Take What You Want to the shameless glam rock throwbacks of Kick (which could easily be a 21st century Sweet) and Fire It Up (a distant cousin of the Arrows' I Love Rock 'n' Roll). Elsewhere, the band dip their toes into everything from gentle country laments (This Guitar and Lifeless, both featuring backing vocals from Alison Krauss) through Sweet Emotion style psychedelia (Liquid Dust) and big epic ballads (Goodbye For Good This Time could almost be Queen while Angels (Can't Help You Now) definitely has an Ian Hunter/Mott The Hoople style feel to it) to Thin Lizzy style riff-fests (All We Need).

The only slight complaint here is that at 15 tracks and over an hour, Diamond Star Halos does give the impression of being a slightly overlong album and there's certainly a few of the later tracks here that could have been cut to give a genuinely great album (U Rok Mi, Gimme A Kiss and Unbreakable are a bit Lep-by-numbers) But overall, this is a good addition to the Leps' canon. Not quite perfect but it's comfortably up there with their better albums and certainly proves that these big cats can still pack a bite some four decades into their career. 

NITE SONGS RATING: 🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌑🌑 (8/10)

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