Diamond Star Halos -
2022Tracklisting -
1.
Take What You Want.
2.
Kick.
3.
Fire It Up.
4.
This Guitar.
5.
SOS Emergency.
6.
Liquid Dust.
7.
U Rok Mi.
8.
Goodbye For Good This Time.
9.
All We Need.
10.
Open Your Eyes.
11.
Gimme A Kiss.
12.
Angels (Can’t Help You Now).
13.
Lifeless.
14.
Unbreakable.
15.
From Here To Eternity.
https://open.spotify.com/album/5arLkguGPIDSGzCT8Cjt6K?si=A08Rc7AXQiOf0YnSSUVhZg2020 struck the world hard, but to me, it seems like the music industry was affected the most. As March came, live shows went from being a regular part of everyone’s lives to becoming a scarce commodity and as time went on, it became a question of if live shows would come back again at all.
For the musicians, this almost turned into a source of inspiration. While rehearsals and gigs went out the window, the ability to write became stronger than ever. Over the last few years, there have been a lot of great albums released that were very much a product of this new landscape. Demos we’re sent between band members and elaborated on from the comfort of homes and livestreams were becoming very commonplace.
For Def Leppard, this was a very new approach to recording an album. Everyone recorded their own parts from home and sent their respective parts to their producer, marking the first time they hadn’t all been together in the studio at any point during the recording process. What came out of it were 15 songs, making up the brand new album
Diamond Star Halos. So, does this new album tick all the boxes? Will we have another release as solid as the self-titled from 2015, or will this be closer to the bottom of the list? Let’s fire it up!
For the most part, I’m going into this album blind. I have only heard the first two of the three singles and I don’t remember much about
Kick, so this is pretty much my first impression on the album as a whole. I’m excited!
Our album opens with a huge buildup, which almost immediately brings to mind
Rock! Rock!’s intro. This is
Take What You Want, the second single released from the album. The main riff, as soon as we kick into it, is nice and big, setting a great pace. The pre-chorus and chorus feature that signature Def Leppard group vocal, Joe’s vocals are nice and punchy and sounding pretty fresh. The bridge brings back the clean riff from the intro, which is a really nice call back. The solo in this one is, much like
Let’s Go before it, a trade off between Vivian and Phil. This whole song has a great pace to it, helped very much by the hook of it’s main riff. This stands really tall over the album, much like
Let’s Go did for me. It’s got me hyped up to see what the rest of this album is going to be like and I’m sure this will be a great show opener when the tour kicks off next week.
Kick feels like a 1970s rocker and
Slang at the same time for me, it’s an odd one to me. After recently listening to
Yeah! again, this song makes a lot more sense to me in the Leppard catalogue. This really is a throwback to old school rockers by bands like Slade and the hook of the chorus grows on me with repetition. The change in the main riff just before the solo is a really cool moment, as is the acapella half of the final chorus. I like this a lot more than when I heard this the first time, I know for sure. As little as I remember of it, I know I wasn’t a fan of it on it’s initial release back in March, but this is actually quite a fun song.
Now we get into blind territory for the first time in this review series.
Fire It Up was released as it’s own single barely a week before the album’s drop but in listening to everything else the band had to offer, I missed this one. 20 seconds in and it’s getting on my nerves a little. The verses sound like they”re trying to be
Pour Some Sugar on Me with the shabby guitar underneath the vocal lines, and instrumentally it works. However, Joe’s delivery here actually really puts me off of this song. The melody is something I can’t get behind. Then there’s a really high droning guitar during the whole chorus that is a little much for way too long. What I will give credit to is the solo, which is a really fun moment. The post-chorus riff is pretty solid too. As a whole though, I do not care for this song at all.
This Guitar is Leppard going proper country and not in a fun
Nine Lives space between country and rock kind of way. This is Joe and Alison Krauss singing over a proper old-school country backing. Again, the solo is a really standout moment, but this is not anything I really wanted to hear from Def Leppard. Taking it for what it is, it’s actually a really nice song. The chorus is really nice. They’ve apparently been sitting on this song for almost 17 years before it finally found it’s way out on a Def Leppard album, but I have to wonder if it really fits? Alison and Joe sound amazing together though. I wouldn’t call it a duet as much as it is two people singing the song simultaneously, but it’s a really nice sound. I hope we get to hear something a bit more Leppard from them later in the album (as she will reappear, according to the Tracklisting).
SOS Emergency brings back the rock vibe. Phil’s notes on the album (available on the iTunes Store) describe this as a marriage between later day Police and Foo Fighters and I couldn’t find a better description. This is a really good hard rocker with a good balance between the rocking choruses and the lighter verses. The call and response between the group vocals and Joe’s lead is really present in this chorus, the solo is really good too. This actually feels a lot like
Promises to me which isn’t too bad. I think this is a lesser song than
Promises was though and it comes to a screeching halt for the police sirens just before the final chorus.
Liquid Dust is next. This one hooked me early on, with a really attractive opening riff. The verse vocal reminds me of basically a reverse
Desert Song, with Joe doing the low octave and a prominent higher octave over it (where the high octave was the buried on
Desert Song). The pre-chorus riff reminds me a lot of the harmonic instrumental tag from the middle of
Undefeated. While on the note of
Retro Active though, the chorus melody reminds me a little of
Fractured Love in the way that it flows. The middle of the track and even more so the outro remind me of
Turn to Dust from
Slang in all the right ways. Oddly, as much as I like the big rockers from Leppard, this is potentially my favourite of the album so far. The ending of the song leads directly into the next song,
which is
U Rok Mi. The opening is all on Ukelele, which allows for the bass to take an absolutely dominating presence during the verses. The chorus is nice and big. This song would have benefitted from maybe less of a goofy title, as everything here absolutely rocks. Reaching into the last minute of the song, the ukelele riff meets distorted guitars, culminating in a great trading solo and a really powerful final chorus! You have to hear this back to back with
Liquid Dust for the full effect, as the former doesn’t reach a full ending and the latter doesn’t take it’s own intro. These are connected, the flow is great and I actually really like it as a double header.
Goodbye For Good This Time is a beautiful piano ballad, featuring Mike Garson who played piano for David Bowie from Aladdin Sane until Bowie’s passing. Joe’s vocal is amazing, adding a perfect soul to his voice that really elevates the track. This is very much a sequel to
Love from
Sparkle Lounge in my ears and I fully intend to try both back-to-back when this review is fully written. The chorus is suitably massive, the acoustic guitar solo is really nice too. I would love to see this song played live sometime, this feels like it will be a very impressive moment to witness if it ever comes to be. It’s a massive song, even without most of the usual Leppard guitars. I love it!
All We Need starts with me thinking I’m listening to a U2 song by mistake, before we kick into a proper Leppard riff. The lead guitar beneath the verse reminds me of
Armageddon It. This feels like a bit more of a spacey rocker, if you know what I mean. Things feel kinda detached from each other, like there’s some space between the layers of tracks. The whole thing sounds really good! The chorus is really catchy and the verses feel really sparse, which I like here. The solo section feels a little tacked on here. This feels somewhat celebratory in nature, which is a really good feeling. The ending with the bass and vocal layers feels very different for Leppard and it’s my favourite moment of the song.
Open Your Eyes opens with a massive bass sound that turns into a great riff! This whole song feels really different and I can’t get enough of it by the time the first chorus ends. This is very different from the rest of the album, which helps it stand out a lot, but it’s amazing. The chorus is my favourite in the album to this stage and every single element in this song feels perfect for the kind of song it is. There is not one thing I can say against the song. This feels like a rocked out cousin to Pearl of Euphoria. The solo is perfect too. My one thing is that I wish we didn’t fade out right as the solo was starting to really kick it up a notch. If this song never sees the light of day live, I will consider that a massive failure of oversight. The chorus is custom built for a singalong and that solo section could go on forever. Perfect. Love this one!
Gimme a Kiss opens with a basic riff that puts me in a good mood from the word go. Joe’s vocal have reclaimed an energy that was missing from a few of the previous tracks and there’s a good sense of fun here. The lyrics are a bit goofy “give me a kiss that rocks, show me a thrill that shocks”, but to be fair Leppard were never the most masterful with their lyrics. I love the added lead guitar to the last chorus, kicking out of the solo really well. Joe’s control over the tempo of the last line acapella is pretty cool, and hearing that kiss right after the song ends reminds me of
Beautiful Girls by Van Halen.
Angels (Can’t Help You Now) is another ballad, dealing about the run of the mill life when things aren’t going the way we want them to. “It’s slipping away but don’t let it break you down.” When we kick into the title line of the song, the songs starts picking up a bit. The solo here adds a great soulful release to the track as a whole, one of the best on the album so far. The vocals on this song are brilliant, as is the piano (still played by Mike Garson). Phil’s notes knt he album say that this song never felt like a Def Leppard song because of its focus on the piano, but they ultimately decided “why not?” It feels like this is a line between Def Leppard and
Dark Side-era Pink Floyd. Not the strongest song, by a long shot, but I’ll take it. The ending keys are just a little too much weird though.
Lifeless is up next, described as “if U2 played a country song and then Leppard covered it, this would be the result”. The riff is plenty catchy here, with a nice gritty but clean tone to boot. I really like the structure of this one, the verses are nice and loose feeling but get way more driven with Krauss’ voice making a return firing the first chorus in a neat counterpoint to Joe’s main melody, before she joins on for the rest of the song fully. The bridge has a nice flow to it before the solo takes this song to another level. I don’t like country much, but I do like this. Still a step below
Nine Lives on the Leppard country scale, but pretty nice all up.
Unbreakable opens with a verse that reminds me of
Mother by Danzig, but it won’t stay there for too long. The main verse is kind of a drag, which is a shame because the chorus is nice and rocking with the U2 lead and a good chugging pattern underneath. I like the quickfire -able words between Joe’s main lines. The solo cuts through with a good pace. For me, this is one of the most filler entries from the album, which isn’t too bad if it’s the second to last before I have to say that.
From Here To Eternity sets a huge vibe straight off the bat! The riff is dynamic and starts up with a huge wall of group vocal. This feels fairly bluesy in it’s pace but the vocal delivery gives it an emphasis much like that of
Billy’s Got a Gun. There really is a lot to unpack here and I do believe it’s easily the biggest song on the album. The main chorus vocal is great! We kick out of the third chorus (since the intro is a chorus) into a great solo section with the backing vocal opening up behind it. This song is all about the vocals though, with lyrics taking on a much more serious tone than most of the rest of the album. This really closes the album in a big nite, though again it fades out in a juicy solo, which as you’ll remember from
Open Your Eyes, annoys me to no end.
So, I’m a little undecided on the album as a whole. I feel like the chase has been way better than the catch here, with the self titled feeling like a much more solid album. This isn’t
X levels of bad, but I feel like it hasn’t reached any of the same heights as the last two albums, outside of having
Open Your Eyes which immediately stands out as the best
Diamond Star Halos song. There are some very good songs in here, but there are a few that really don’t cut it for me and bring the whole album down as a result. I think for a first listen, I’m not as hyped as I’d like to be, but the journey hasn’t been one of rediscovery as others had been. A solid album, but maybe not a great one. 3.75 for a first listen, but I look forward to giving it further listens in the future.
Well, that’s it. We’ve done everything! I loved doing this with you all, the ride has been very fun. I would love to do another one of these discography deep dives soon though, so take your pick from the following of who you’d like to see me cover next. Or tell me to rack off if you don’t want to see me do another.
Dream Theater (this is the DT forum after all)
Iron Maiden
Judas Priest
Metallica
Megadeth
Rush
Topic: Deadeye21’s Def Leppard Deep Dive (Read 11479 times)
