Def Leppard’s first official label release “‘On Through the Night’” released in March 1980. Raw, fast, very heavy metal, and the band’s first attempt at stardom.
This debut album is undoubtedly nothing compared to the band’s unsteady heights they later achieved with Pyromania. A ruthless solid Heavy Metal riffgasm album. The production makes them sound like a true Hard Rock band, not like their most successful albums. If Def Leppard had stayed in this formula and evolved with it, they could have been as good as Judas Priest, especially with Tom Allon on the mixer.
The album is very underrated recorded while they were still playing British heavy metal. Production a bit garage, but power and rock energy unparalleled. A great debut showing what they can do. We find in this “On Through The Night” certain elements that will be the hallmark of the group, such as for example the staging with a false audience, or the sense of unstoppable chorus.
And when I say that, I’m talking about the sound, on the borderline between Rock and Metal like the first album of Iron Maiden, and not that kind of phony Disco voice that arises most of the time. There is also a nostalgic side to listening to the thing because the album feels good the transition between the ’70s and ’80s.
The height of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal started moving slowly but steadily in 1980. Def Leppard delivers tons of guitars and straight lyrics with “On Through the Night” and takes little care of the whole primordium of the metal scene.
Overall, “On Through the Night” the band unquestionably unloads their heaviest freight. Everything that comes next – and as you know, that should be quite a lot: it never sounds so hard and direct like on this first album
Listen to the full album below: