Reviews, Leppards and Crabs

Def Leppard's Adrenalize was a pastiche of sounds, from early 90's pop to early 80's hard rock. Eventually they got back to that Hysteria sound of power chords, guitar licks and what we've always called 'Wall of D' vocals. We give you White Lightening:

Oh, there we go. There it is. If you're a Def Leppard fan, you waited four songs for White Lightening.  White Lightening is about Steve Clark's alcoholism and death. A trainlike bass drives the verse to a great bridge. There's an intense chorus followed by a long, multipart guitar solo. Whie Lightening goes right to the Def Leppard fan's brain. A perfect song for a serious subject. 

As of this writing, The Great Nuclear War of 1975 has 30 ratings averaging 4 + stars. Here's the two latest reviews:

Which is nice. Which was the point. Heh, the retired air force guy didn't notice I used Air Force MPs rather than the proper SPs. High praise though. High praise for sure. The Great Nuclear War of 1975 works because it's bleak, as the other above reviewer says, bleak AF. The story gets even bleaker after the little Malvines submarine adventure, with people freezing, starving or beating each other to death. [Malvines! Why you cheeky....Ed]. Readers will notice we took the teen summer camp fantasy trope (which we kinda used in To Survive the Earth) and made it a nightmare. 

Herein lies the risk for The Great Salvation of 1976. There's lots of cabinet meetings about problems we think are interesting, reconstruction, elections, etc etc. There's still plenty of vignettes but these are more hopeful. They feel kind of like the scene in Independence Day in which all the fighter pilots from various nations are gathered in the desert. Which was totally cool. We're almost done with the print readthrough. The ending feels a bit short. 68,000 words. We'll rap things up in April.

This blog has men on the ground all over Canada. Yellow Knife, Moose Jaw, White Horse, Cambridge Bay (Ok, Edmonton, Vancouver, and Quebec). One of them informed us that the communist NDP made a deal with the Libs for Justin to stay in power till 2025. Our man is skeptical the deal last that long, but still. You asked for Justin. You voted for Justin. Canada, you deserve Justin Trudeau. 

What Will's Watching, Black Crab: This Guardian review is spot on, 'There’s a civil war on in Sweden, and yet no one seems to know why. It’s gonna be a bad one, as imagined by the sporadically tense and consistently pointless Netflix thriller Black Crab, which sends the country into a state of dystopian devastation only five short years removed from the present.' Black Crab must sound more menacing in the original Swedish. At times the cinematography is beautiful, but overall Black Crab does not reach the heights to which it aspires. 2/4 

Let's Get Meh

Def Leppard's Adrenalize is a hodgepodge of songs reflecting various stages in the band's career. Stand up, Kick love into Motion is a very early 90's song, soft and pleasant with a lot of harmonies. The album's last track, Tear it Down ,has a lot of power chords. One could slip Tear it Down onto 1981's High n Dry and it'd fit right in. The linked performance is actually from the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards. 

Let's look at Adrenalize's first track and first release, Let's Get Rocked.

Look there! It's 1992 but the hair is still big. That's right, trends don't stop because the decade changes over. 1981 has more in common with 1978 than 1988. 1992 had one fashion foot in the late 1980's. Also look, on this Top of the Pops performance, Def Leppard is a four man band.

When we first heard Let's Get Rocked in a posh London hotel room, we were kind of meh about it. The song wants to sound like Poor Some Sugar on Me and imitates the opening. The verse is...okay. The chorus sounds like it was written in 15 minutes to get the song over with. The guitar solo is stripped down and minimal, but lacks punch. Let's Get Rocked never achieves the heights to which it aspires. 

We've never loved this song but we're in the minority. We've seen Def Leppard a half dozen times this century and Let's Get Rocked always makes the song set. It's better live. 

Monday Metal

Next week (31 March) is the 30th anniversary of Def Leppard's Adrenalize. Back in '92*, we didn't even know Adrenalize was coming till we saw it on display at a massive record store in London, our grandparents took us there for a graduation present. When we got back to the hotel, we popped the cassette into our Walkman and were...kind of underwhelmed.

In the 15 years since Def Leppard released On Through the Night, they evolved from post-glamrock to  hardrock, to sharp-edged heavy metal to...early 90's rock. Adrenalize has a lot of soft guitar rifts and melodies. At least a couple of songs would make perfectly good romantic mood music. High and Dry (1981), where every song had searing vocals and guitar rifts, Adrenalize was not. 

Everyone likes to talk about Grunge, but the early 90s were also a time of pop one hit wonders and love ballads. Adrenalize is a product of its time. Also, lead guitarist Steve Clark had died in 1991, so the album was a four man rather than a five man effort. Adrenalize simply lacked the punch of High and Dry, Pyromania, and Hysteria.

Which isn't to say Adrenalize is bad. The album quickly grew on us that spring, becoming part of the soundtrack of and a great comfort during a very difficult time. This week is Adrenalize week at Stroock's Books, and we'll be doing a deep dive into the album. 

*Reference.