Tag: Invincible

Def Leppard – ‘Def Leppard’ (2015) – Album Review (The Def Leppard Collection Series)

Published on by 2loud2oldmusic18 Comments

We are finally to the 11th Studio album by Def Leppard. It comes off the longest break between albums sitting at 7 years. The last album was ‘Songs From the Sparkle Lounge’ back in 2008. Now, they did have some live albums in between the two studio albums and we reviewed those years ago, you can click those links below. Therefore, we are jumping to 2015 where the band released their first self-titled album. Why now? Simply put, the band felt this album was nothing but the Def Leppard sound. No one era of the band…a little bit of all of them. I can tell you for sure this does sound like a Def Leppard album…good or bad! The sound hasn’t changed and neither has the band as it is still Joe Elliott, Rick Allen, Rick Savage, Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell as it has been for over 20+ years. I still think of Vivian as the new guy though. LOL!!

The album was released on October 30, 2015 and it went #10 on the Billboard 200 Album Chart. This was their seventh Top 10 album of their career. Now, it did go to #1 on the Rock Charts in case you were wondering. The album did spawn four singles, but of course none of them charted in the Top 40 as we are long past those days. But we do get an album that is what you want from the band and expect. It is a Def Leppard album, no doubt. There is also a lot of diversity on the album which can be good and can be bad if it isn’t done right. We will see if it was.

The band says the album is all Def Leppard from across the years, well the opening track “Let’s Go” is straight out of the ‘Hysteria’ era. A bombastic opening track that oozes everything from that album. It has a huge chorus full of those gang vocals they do so well. Listen to Sav’s bass lines, he does some great work on this one and of course there is a Leppardesque solo to boot. An arena rock track that puts you on notice the boys are back.

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W.E.T. – ‘W.E.T.’ (2009) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

Published on by 2loud2oldmusic47 Comments

After Jeff Scott Soto was let go from Journey, Serafino Perugino of Frontiers Records really wanted Jeff to record an album a pure hard/melodic rock album that is the same vein of Journey. Jeff had different ideas. Jeff had been working on his solo album ‘Beautiful Mess’ which was a far cry from that type of music. However, Jeff agreed but on one condition. That condition was that ‘Beautiful Mess’ was released first…and it was.

Serafino also had the idea of doing a supergroup with Jeff in it. When he heard the first handful of songs, Jeff was really in to it and signed up. It also helped who else was in the band. The original name of the band was called Lost in the Shadows and I don’t think anyone liked that name at all. They come up with the name W.E.T. and that was because who was in the band. That included Robert Sall of the band Work of Art (The “W”); Erik Martensson of the band Eclipses (The “E”) and Jeff Scott Soto of the band Talisman (The “T”). All three bands are Swedish bands and all on Frontiers so it made it easy to bring these three guys together.

The songs were written by a number of writers, but Erik and Robert wrote a majority of the songs and Jeff wrote the lyrics. Magnus Henriksson was also involved with writing along with Johan Becker and Miqeal Persson. On instruments, of course Erik and Robert played, Jeff sang, but there were others. Magnus Henriksson from the band Eclipse played most of the lead guitars and Robben Black, also of Eclipse, played the drums and was actually the fourth member of the band and since he was in Eclipse, technically he is part of the “E” as well. This rag tag group of musicians actually pulled it off and brought one of the best Supergroups Frontiers has put together (and they have put together a lot and most are forgettable).

The band was only going to be a one-off project and were not going to tour. however, the fans wanted more. When Warrant pulled out of the the 2011 Firefest, they asked if W.E.T. would fill in. After a lot of phone calls and changed schedules they made it happen. The next thing you know, they agreed to do another album and the band played on. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, so let’s dive in to the debut album called ‘W.E.T.’ (simple enough). The album came out on November 29, 2009 in Europe and the U.S. got it some time in 2010. The reception of the album was fantastic and it helped solidify me as a massive Soto fan. In fact, when I met Jeff back in April 2022, I brought 5 CD covers of my favorite Soto albums and this was one of them. As you can see above in the header photo, Jeff signed this CD for me. I think I now have about 7 of the albums signed by him.

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