• AllMyVinyl #68
• Band: Def Leppard
• Album Title: Diamond Star Halos
• Release Date: 27 May 2022
• Date purchased: 16 Jan 2023
• Location purchased: Amazon
• Color of vinyl: black
• Number of discs: 2
• Links: [ Wikipedia | Discogs | Band Website | Complete album on Youtube ]

More Rick Savage please!  That will make sense later.

This was an album that was not on my radar when I bought it Jan 2023.  In fact until then I didn’t even know it was out.  I happened to be poking around Amazon, and they recommended it when I put another album in my cart (So Happy it Hurts by Bryan Adams).  I was like “What is this?” so I did some brief investigating, and it was indeed a fairly new album at the time – had just been out about 4 months at that point, so I snapped it up.  There’s no history with this one, the vinyl I own was the first purchase, so no memory to draw from – another one that was released after I got back into vinyl in 2020.  It’s a double studio album – two vinyls, which I know doesn’t necessarily mean “double album”, but it feels like it. 15 songs and 61 minutes, so we’re well past the 35 min full albums of the 70’s and into the 80’s.  Given there’s not a lot of intro for this one, I’m just going to dive in.

Take What You Want – starts off with a good heavy riff.  It’s an interesting mix of Def Leppard’s classic 80’s sound and something heavier.  Not quite Vol 4 heavy, but for them it’s a good heavy track.  Nice way to start things off.   Good guitar solo to mix in with the running beat – but given Leppard has two lead guitarists, it’s hard to tell (for me anyway) who is playing what, so I can’t just single out Phil or Vivian.  But no mater whose playing, this is a strong guitar oriented track to lead off the album.

Kick – This song had a full on music video made for it.  Not a huge surprise as it was the first single out of the gate.  Usually the first track is the most promoted, and man, I knew NONE of this – so their marketing for this one totally missed me.  It’s a good choice for a single, but I would have preferred the track before this as an opener, but that’s it’s harder edged.  This one dances more in their 80’s sound than “Take” does, but that’s not a problem.

Fire It Up – This one is more geared towards Joe Elliott (at least at the start).  It was the third single, and is decent.  It feels like a song that would work well in a live crowd.  I can definitely see them getting the crowd singing “Fire It Up” – the way it’s presented here makes it seem like a definite audience participation track.  By the time the song was over, I found myself bopping in my chair – a definite sign of a good song if I’m doing “air drums” to it.  Nice guitar solo which I THINK is Vivian?  I try to listen for that old “Dio sound” when I hear him in Leppard – which still seems like an odd move for him after all this time.  Anyway, good track.

This Guitar – We go down a different path here.  This is a much slower song, and lead vocals are handled not only by Joe, but he’s also signing with Allison Krauss – who fans of this genre will know for her duets with Robert Plant in recent vintage.  It’s not “ballad slow”, but definitely things are brought down a lot on this track.   This will be a song people either love or hate, I think.  It’s VERY different in feel, definitely not something that makes you think “bludgeon riffola”.  By the time the song is over, it’s got a bit more leanings towards electric guitar, but you don’t feel you’re going to get there when the song starts.

SOS Emergency – The electric guitars are back.  From the start this is more a traditional Leppard sound with a great guitar intro.  The vocals Joe has on this track remind me of stuff you’d hear in the 80’s.  Joe would have been around 62 or 63 when he recorded this, and his vocals on this track still feel like they did back in the 80’s on this track.

Liquid Dust – The first song that didn’t do a lot for me.  It’s not bad, it’s just kind of there.  I do like the phonetic sound of the phrase “liquid dust” however.  It’s not a ballad, but it’s not an in your face track either.  It’s just kind of there.  Not my favorite, but it doesn’t suck either.

U Rok Mi – This song blends together with the last one – there’s no real break between them when I played the vinyl, it felt like a single song – despite there being a visible spot on the vinyl where the song breaks are.  That confused me at first, I was about to start writing about the beat of this track being different than Dust, and realized the song changed, I had to back the vinyl up and make sure. This one has a more bass oriented feel – a thing that’s not usually done (to my memory) in Leppard.  It’s a lower edge beat, which is a nice diversion from the usual Leppard sound.  Like this.  I also am amused by the intentional misspelling of the song title.  :)

Goodbye for Good This Time – This starts with just a piano and some orchestration and Joe sounding like he’s singing from about 6 feet behind me as I listen to this.   The song also has a bit in the middle that sounds like it has a flamenco guitar.  It’s definitely the slow song, but it works.  I love some of the guitar work on this, and it’s not the usual electric guitar sounds you’d expect from a band like this.   Most will probably overlook this track, but I quite liked it.  Reminded me a bit of some of the musical experimentation Queen used to do back in the day.  It ends with a few nice tickles of the piano keyboard – would have made a great album closer, too.

All We Need – Side 2 kicks off a track that’s got a mid 80’s Leppard sound to it – without all the synth that era was known for.  Would kind of find a home on the Euphoria album.  The solo is more of a sound that would have come from the first two albums, but overall, this harnesses their mid 80’s sound really well.

Open Your Eyes – More bass from Rick Savage is noticeable here again – a sound I like and wish there was more of.  Love it when  the bassist isn’t invisible in the background and is more in the front in the sound.  If that’s you, you’ll like this track.  Very enjoyable song – great mix of the various Leppard sounds.

Gimme A Kiss – This one is the more traditional hard rock sound they’re known for.  Another one of those that harnesses their classic 80’s sound, but in a way that makes it sound both different and familiar at the same time.

Angels – Another song with orchestration and a slower angle.  Loved this for sure.  A wonderful mix of sounds and ideas mashed together here.  Not any of them makes me go “Damn, THIS is the reason”, but put ’em all together and this song works really well.   When this song ended, I didn’t want it to.

Lifeless – The second (of two) songs with Allison Krauss on vocals.  The balance of this album shows here again, as it’s back to a slower ballad type song.  This one oddly doesn’t feature her as up front as the other one does – unless it’s my stupid brain not picking up on it for some reason.  The other Krauss song on this album was better, IMO.

Unbreakable – This has a nice beat I like coupled with the 80’s background vocals sound of theirs.  The biggest surprise for me on the album – when I heard this it sounds like one of those songs I knew forever and instantly liked it.  I really loved the vocal delivery in the chorus when they say “Unbreakable, unshakeable, unbreakable, unshakeable”.  It has a nice fluid guitar solo that goes with it quite nicely.  Very overlooked track in their catalog.

From Here to Eternity – The outlier on the album closes it out – and is my favorite song from the album.  This song is solely credited to Rick Savage.  In reading about this album I saw this specific track called out as sounding like Queen and also Pink Floyd.  It’s definitely something different.  In fact, when it was just starting, I thought the guitar sounded like something Led Zeppelin would do.  So this song is probably a mix of a bunch of other sounds the guys in the band like.  Makes me wonder what their catalog would be like if they let Rick Savage write more.  Rick also co-wrote the album opener (Take What You Want) – the two of them are killer tracks.  More Rick Savage, please!

Their classic 80’s sound has several parts that make it what it was then.  While this album has nothing like that era (Photograph, Rock of Ages, Pour Some Sugar, Rocket, etc).  The things that made those songs popular are here – they’re just scattered through various songs given the entire album a tie into their classic sound, but without any one individual song going “AHA – they’re just using their old sound for this one”.

When I mentioned this album being today’s album to a few friends and my wife today before I started listening none of them even KNEW this existed. Def Leppard NOW is a band that will fight their own legacy.  Given they’ve been around for so long, there’s a lot of people who will only want to hear Rock of Ages or Photograph or something like that.  To get them to listen to new music is a struggle.  That’s a shame, because even casual Def Leppard people would find something here to like – if they took the time to listen to it, and not just go “Eh, they’re not what they once were”.

They ARE what they once were – take the time to find that out and listen to this.

Additional videos (there’s over 40) here.