"Where were you in '79 when the dam began to burst?"

Well, I was 5 in '79 but, later, when I first heard this 1981 release by Saxon, I understood why they hit it big and are still going strong (yet underrated). Saxon was part of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal that was unleashed on the world in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Formed in 1977, Saxon--as is announced in the track "Denim and Leather"--burst on the scene in 1979 while on tour with Motorhead. Denim and Leather was their 4th album in just three years of putting out studio releases. It starts with "Princess of the Night," an interesting and charming track about an old, obsolete steam locomotive that brought fond memories to one young admirer: "She used to be an iron horse, 20 years ago." It sounds like early Iron Maiden (another of the Brit Metal New Wavers). Although this track and others on here resemble the style of Paul Di'Anno era-Maiden, vocalist Biff Byford sounds so much like Bruce Dickinson on this first track, it's scary! "Princess..." is my favorite song on this album followed by "Out of Control" with its catchy guitar hooks.



The rest of the album has a blue collar hard rock sound. Fans of early AC/DC and early '80s Judas Priest will like Saxon's rawness and aggression. The title track is an anthem to rock 'n roll that would fit nicely on any AC/DC album of that time. "Play It Loud" is another AC/DC-esque anthem. Saxon may have sounded blue collar, but they also paid attention to details. "Rough and Ready" has some nice vocal harmonizing. "Midnight Rider" is another favorite of mine. It reminds me of the catchy tracks off Judas Priest's Stained Class. There is nothing weak here; every track kicks! Recommended to fans of early 1980s metal during a time when metal was about to be accepted as cool by the record-buying public and well before pop metal bands began to swarm on the music world.

DEFINITIVE SAXON

i would rate this as saxons finest hour, the whole band peaked on this album and i would say that this is one of classic rock/metals best kept secrets. its to bad saxon never made it in the u.s.a,becuase they are the best representation of a nwobhm band(along with paul dianno era iron maiden).this is just one of heavy metals finest albums ever made and its a shame that saxon does not get any recognition because they are

lightyears ahead of all of the other nwobhm bands and they just plaine kick @$$, why is it that bands like def leppard,areosmith and metallica are famous and not these guys?

saxon blows all of em away, paul quinn and gramm oliver could lay to waste any american guitar player, people rave about van halen and joe perry, please, these guys are overrated, paul and gramm could school these guys blindfolded! biff is just god like, he is one of metals most magnetic frontmen, whith his vocal delivery. this is one of those albums not many have heard about,but thats there loss! good thing there is amazon.com becuase otherwise,you would probably not find this album anywhere, it seems to be non exsistant in record stores as well as anything else from saxon,to bad, seems people want to listen to crap like slipknot and linkin park,any way just find this album and set your spirit free.

Less then Mediocore,..boy that is bad

First off, I'm a big fan of these guys so i don't want to come off as anti-Saxon or anything like that...



This album is the weakest of the Saxon albums before they went pop after CRUSADER.The first Saxon song i ever heard was Denim&Leather and i loved it,made me a fan of Saxon in the first place.I could not find this album in the record store when i wanted a Saxon album so i picked up the lone import copy of WHEELS OF STEEL they had. After listening to WHEELS i finally got a copy of DENIM&LEATHER and i was greatly DISSAPOINTED by it. This album is not solid at all, most of the songs are forgettable and weak but ironically it has three of the best saxon songs on it which are "Princess of the Night" "Midnight Rider" and the title track,so it wasn't a complete loss i guess.Other then those hits, the rest of the songs on the album sound like weak b-sides and half done reject material. Songs like "Rough and Ready" "Out of Control" "Play it Loud" and "Never Surrender" sound like they were written by the local drunks at the irish pub. So there you have it, 3 exellent songs and 6 total crap songs, how do you really rate an album like that? I would not recommend this as a first album to get from saxon, it's just a limp,weak record. I would make WHEELS or STRONG ARM OF THE LAW the first ones to get if you want to start with a Saxon record, then after that their best album THE POWER AND THE GLORY and a little bit behind that CRUSADER, which are all stong albums with no weak songs.I think this album was so lacking in good material was because Saxon by this time was getting popular in the U.K. now and were constantly on the road with little down time to actually put real thought in the song writting process. You can tell by the lyrics in some of the songs that this album was rushed, there wasn't much going on in the songwritting department.Thank god they came back after this with the powerful POWER AND GLORY album.