'Pyromania' and '
Adrenalize' bookended Def Leppard's career defining magnum opus, '
Hysteria'.
Now, on the brink of headlining the UK's massive Download Festival, the band have reissued deluxe editions of these two multimillion selling albums.
Each comes with a live second CD.
'Pyromania' is the more interesting.
It saw the band - with considerable help from Robert "Mutt" Lange - make serious strides toward distancing themselves from their NWOBHM roots. The further you go into '
Pyromania' the closer you get to '
Hysteria'.
The songwriting is sharper, more focused. The melodies richer, more generously applied. The production is polished to within an inch of its life, with its British Heavy Metal baggage surgically removed - only a few bloody remnants remain - and consigned to the bin of hard rock history.
If you cast aside the juvenile notions and the stunted lyrics, it's an almost unadulterated concentrate of eighties pop-rock-metal. What everybody was aiming for but few attained, apart perhaps from
Bon Jovi and Boston.
In a neat reversal of convention, Lange's trick of using full-on backing harmonies to takeover lead vocal on the chorus works a treat on this album, not least on the sublime
'Photograph' - a roughed out blueprint for the '
Hysteria' album, and '
Rock Of Ages', one of '
Pyromania's standouts.
'Too Late For Love's Waspish sting and the ambitious '
Die Hard The Hunter's brassy veneer ensure the metal content is optimised, sitting very comfortably with '
Comin Under Fire's and '
Foolin's hardbodied, grown up resonance .
The "bonus" CD in this Deluxe package is a remarkably powerful recording of the band's LA Forum gig, in 1983.
It's a 15 track sonic boom of a live disc, full of tight, high level band performances, with Elliott in particularly good voice, overdub free.
All the songs you would expect are here, with others sounding so much more nuanced than you would anticipate for such a young, exhuberant band, like the extended version of '
Another Hit And Run' and the fiery, big production number, '
Bringing On The Heartbreak', both originally from the '
High'N'Dry' release.
Given the excellent remastering of the original release and the informative liner notes from David (Rolling Stone) Fricke, this is a winning attempt at re-packaging past glories.
While
'Pyromania' sold 10 million worldwide, '
Adrenalise' "only" sold 7 million.
All things are relative.
Bands would willingly sacrifice an unimportant member of their family to achieve these kinds of numbers nowadays.
If '
Hysteria' was '
Pyromania's bigger, much better looking brother, then
'Adrenalize' was the wannabe cousin who bore a close resemblance. For many fans this only went skin deep, believing the album to lack the sheer weight and sophistication of its predecessor. But, can 7 million people be wrong?
In addition, while
'Pyromania' is the more interesting package, '
Adrenalize' is perhaps the better value.
Mainly because Disc 2 is a fabulous collection of rare live stuff and "B-sides".
There's '
Pour Some Sugar On Me' and '
Lets Get Rocked' from the Bonn gig of the "In The Clubs, In Your Face" tour.
There's '
You Can't Always Get What You Want' - a cover of the 'Stones' classic, the B side of
'Have You Ever Needed'. There's the acoustic version of
'Two Steps Behind', the B-side of
'Tonight'.
And there's a worth-buying-the-album-for cover of Hendrix's '
Little Wing', recorded with The Hothouse Flowers.
12 tracks in all, and every one a winner.
In essence, two great value packages, each with its own attractive characteristics and both with bonus material that's well worth owning.
Start shopping now.
Written by
Brian Friday, June 12, 2009
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