Def Leppard's finest hour...

On Through The Night (1980.) Def Leppard's first album.



Def Leppard evolved from the remains of a mid-late seventies rock group in Sheffield, England called Atomic Mass. Many of the group's original members left the band. The vacancies were filled, and what resulted was a new band, called Def Leppard. The New Wave Of British Heavy Metal was striking the United Kingdom hard in these years, and this new up and coming band pleased fans with their self-titled 1979 EP. One year later, the group released their first full-length album, On Through The Night. Would Rick Allen, Joe Elliott, Rick Savage, Pete Willis, and Steve Clark gain instant success with their first album? Read on for my review.



Did this album bring Def Leppard any success? In short, the answer is no. This album was a commercial failure, which is a shame. Why's it a shame, you ask? THIS IS THE BEST ALBUM DEF LEPPARD EVER RECORDED! This isn't like the wimpy pop stuff the band started churning out in the nineties. It's not even a pop rock album. It's an NWOBHM album. Hard to believe, but true. There was a time when Def Leppard rocked hard, and this was that time. The stylings of this album follow the stylings the band debuted on the Def Leppard EP. In fact, two of the songs on here, Rocks Off and Overture, are remakes of songs from the EP. Wasted and Hello America, the group's first singles (not counting the EP), also appear on this album. The latter song was quite popular, and I'm surprised it didn't get more recognition. But, the lesser-known songs are the best. Sorrow Is A Woman, a gloomy half-ballad, half-rocker, is my personal favorite cut here. The straight-up NWOBHM-flavored hard rock stylings of It Don't Matter and It Could Be You are pretty damn good too. From start to finish, this is a filler-free album without a single weak track. I own well over five hundred CDs, and I will not hesitate to say that this falls in my top ten favorite amongst them.



Unfortunately, this album has a problem - poor production quality. It only took a month to record this album, and it was recorded in an abandoned warehouse. The weak production shows through in many places on the album (fortunately, their later efforts would be produced by big-time record producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange, in finer facilities, so this would be a problem on them.) It's too bad Tom Allom didn't have better facilities to work with. This album desperately needs remastering, and some expanded liner notes and bonus tracks would be nice (there are a TON of songs from this era that the band has NEVER released on CD!) It's a great album, but you might want to hold out and see if a remaster surfaces.



On Through The Night is Def Leppard's best album, despite being a commercial failure. The band would gain little popularity from this album, but when they would start to gain it, they would lose the awesome sound chronicled only on this album and its predecessor releases that have never been released on CD. If you're a fan of NWOBHM, or you just want to hear what early Def Leppard sounded like, DO NOT HESTIATE TO BUY THIS ALBUM. I'd give it well over five stars if I could!