Released: 1980
Tracks: Rock Brigade; Hello America; Sorrow is a Woman; It Could Be You; Satellite; When the Walls Came Tumbling Down; Wasted; Rocks Off; It Don’t Matter; Answer to the Master; Overture
Best track: Rock Brigade
Tracks to skip: It Could Be You, Satellite, When the Walls Came Tumbling Down, Rocks Off
I have to admit, I’m not as familiar with this album as I am with later stuff like Pyromania & Hysteria. I mean, there’s a reason I didn’t listen to this as much as the others when I was a kid – it’s just not that great. On Through the Night is Def Lep’s debut album and has a similar sound to a lot of other NWOBHM albums that came out at the time. It’s quite a bit more polished than Iron Maiden’s debut which came out about a month later. Still, for Def Leppard, this album is really raw.
What I enjoy most about this album is the guitar playing. Nearly every track has something worthwhile guitar-wise. Both Pete Willis & Steve Clark show off their skills quite nicely here. Their playing all throughout the album is the highlight. I really like the guitar breaks in both Sorrow is a Woman and Answer to the Master. The problems I have with the album are the vocals (in places…there are some nice harmonies in Overture), vocal melodies and songwriting in general. A lot of hot shot guitar playing can’t save bad songs – It Could Be You, for instance. A lot of the songs, specifically the ones mentioned above as “skippers” all feature cool guitar parts, but the songs themselves just aren’t very good.
The most solid song here is the opening track, Rock Brigade. Yeah, it’s cheesy. But you know, it rocks and is a great introduction for the album and band. It’s definitely my favorite one here. Some other ones like Wasted, Answer to the Master and Hello America are pretty good, even if they’re a tad silly. I really hate the keyboards and synth on this album, on Hello America in particular. When you have such great guitar players like Clark and Willis, you’ve got to ditch the synths. Unfortunately, the band quite likes those synths and have kept them in the band all through the years. I also have to say, the band’s art rock tendencies are ridiculous. While Overture is significantly better than When the Walls Came Tumbling Down, all of that arty stuff isn’t very believable.
Overall, this one is best left for hard core Def Leppard fans. As I said, the guitar playing is really good throughout, but the songwriting is generally pretty weak. Good thing is they get better when it comes to songwriting over the next few albums.
Rating: 70
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