Review | Def Leppard - Pyromania

Def Leppard’s third album hit stores in January 1983, an album that brought with then new Phil Collen, who was replacing Pete Willis. With their previous works, Leppard had offered a good dose of metal that fit perfectly within the NWOBHM, however with Pyromania the sound gradually changed.

Opening with Rock! Rock! (Till You Drop) which tried to follow the same path as Pyromania but with a slight decrease in the primordial heavy metal that we could hear on High N’ Dry or In Through The Night. With Photograph and Stagefright the sound would change radically, bordering on pure eighties hard rock, with clear american inflences like Van Halen, the epic Follin’ again tried to recover the sound of their first two albums, as with the closing of the album by the hand of Billy’s Got A Gun.

I´m not saying that Pyromania is a bad album, on the contrary, the formula used on this album worked too well for them, just that for the fans who enjoyed the first two albums it seemed a bit strange to the change the sound. Even so Pyromania was the first album of great sucess of Def Leppard thanks to the singles Photograph, Rock Of Ages and Foolin’. But with an honorable mention for Too Late For Love, which for me, is the best track on the album.

From here on, the “americanization” of the band would continue and they would continue demostrating it with the album that would arrive in 1987…

1. “Rock! Rock! (Till You Drop)”

2. “Photograph”

3. “Stagefright”

4. “Too Late for Love”

5. “Die Hard the Hunter”

Side two

1. “Foolin’”

2. “Rock of Ages”

3. “Comin’ Under Fire”

4. “Action! Not Words”

5. “Billy’s Got a Gun”