Amazon.com: Although it's difficult to remember through the smoke of Pyromania, this 1981 album, the quintet's second, hoisted Def Leppard to the apex of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Building on raw metal anthems, the band adds subtle melodic touches, catchy guitar riffs, and simpler lyrical themes. Producer Mutt Lange, a longtime associate of AC/DC, absorbs these pop-oriented changes without severely blunting the metal edge. While the album foreshadows Leppard's multiplatinum success, it also retains the aggressive power and rough-edged distortion of heavy metal. The power ballad "Bringing on the Heartbreak" ushered in a style that would come to define 1980s metal. Although later albums showcase well-crafted songwriting and glossy production, this one catches Leppard at the peak of their true metal years. --Marc Greilsamer
Scratched cd-Def Leppard-High n dry When I received the Def Leppard cd, High n Dry, I played it on my home cd player and on my auto cd player and it got stuck on certain sections. I would assume it is scratched. I intend to return it as soon as possible.
The First Classic Album This is tied for my favorite Def Leppard album along with Hysteria. Mutt Lange infused ideas from his days producing AC/DC with the more pop oriented and raw talent of early Def Leppard. The result is an album that is raw and melodic. Not quite heavy metal but it has enough big riffs for any metalhead to enjoy. Def Leppard would never be this aggressive again but that's just what makes this album special.
Raw, innovative, unbridled What can be said about this album that hasn't been said before. At the cusp of being a teenager, my friend found some cassettes at a park. He gave me this album and heard it. Then I heard it again. And again. I was hypnotized. I didn't know it at the time, but I was listening to one of the top hard rock albums of all time. For almost all rock bands, for reasons I shall not get into, their first or second albums are their greatest work. Most rock critics like to use the tired phrase "their early work was best" to describe most band's output. But in this case, it is absolutely undisputed. Their second album is undeniably raw and engaging. Their riffs on Switch 625 are practically unparallelled. This was a piece of work where band members where clearly trying to please themselves. At the time, this was a band that was clearly not trying to turn their work into a commercial success. This is what you get before you get discovered. Even the album Pyormania was excellent, but was not as raw as this album. Pyromania was much more refined. What do you get when you get a garage band and put them into a studio, all the while telling them that this work will never be heard by anyone else? You get "High and Dry". Enjoy.
Among Leppard's Best! Def Leppard have a reputation of being a fairly poppy band, and a far cry from the much heavier aspects of the NWOBHM. This, to some credit, is based on their hits, which do have this tendency. But this album, containing only one such hit, is miles away from what I expected it to be. Rather than the overly pop-oriented rock you hear on the radio, what I found was a mix of the Def Leppard I knew and thoroughly un-pop hard rock bands, like AC/DC. As such, the album is a complete surprise and one I recommend to any that are familiar with Def Leppard only from their radio play and music videos.
A Great Album Not the best DL but not far from it. I would rate it as #3 (i.e. their 3rd best alblum).
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