![]() ![]() But you know what they say about hindsight: it makes you like Hysteria‘s melodies. With Hysteria, the band went neck-deep into melodies. The first three albums make that abundantly clear. Now, Def Lep were always really good at melodies. It’s just this side of fingernails on chalkboard, and it’s glorious. Hysteria may kinda sound like weird garbage, but Hysteria is a ton of fun to listen to. It’s so formulated and cloying it makes me pull my hair out in frustration, and the sounds are way more clinical and processed than a guy who usually says things like “The production should sound more like a His Hero Is Gone record” should have any business liking, but I like it. Say it with me, loud and proud: Hysteria brings me joy. (Also: Def Lep had the weird-triggered production sound down pat 20 years before your fave tech-death band, so this album is actually a bit of a pioneer as far as extreme metal production goes.) (Stick around, we’ve still got a lot of words left here.)Īnd here’s the rub, man: Hysteria brings me joy. It’s definitely odd-sounding and not exactly raw and rocking, but it works for this set of songs. Maybe that’s more a comment on modern production sounds than anything, but I feel that Hysteria just is not as soulless as we always say it is. Thing is, this album isn’t actually as robotic and stiff as we remember it being. Clearly, once the band got a glimpse of the technology bug, they dove in like a kid in a candy shop. Melodies that pull on the heartstrings but also inspire joy? Absolutely.īut, yeah, the production: now, I realize part of the reason why Def Lep plunged so deep into the world of ultra-modern production was necessity, as drummer Rick Allen had to switch over to a electronic drum set-up at this point in his career. Choruses both predictable and anthemic? Definitely. I’m not entirely convinced this album isn’t some kind of experiment sent down here by aliens who were trying to understand what the humans enjoy putting in their ears: sugar-sweet melodies? Why, yes. It’s a fascinating glimpse into the argument of whether or not music made by machines can have heart and soul, because I think Hysteria was mainly made by machines. It’s barely music as we understood it existing at that point, yes. ![]() But here in 2018, it’s worth reconsidering both these points, because while they’re totally valid, they’re also totally why the album is worth a second consideration. This was the “metal” equivalent of a really long ad jingle. ![]() Now, we all hated Hysteria when we were younger (a lot of those 25 million people were disappointed metalheads who muttered something about the NWOBHM every time they pulled out one of their cassette drawers and the still-basically-untouched, glossy spine of Hysteria gave them a silent plea to just try listening one more time) because it was produced to the point of not even sounding human and because the songs were totally transparent ploys to get stuck in our brains. But did Lep jump the shark with Hysteria? Let’s not be so hasty. Thing is, like all self-respecting metalheads, you probably think the first two Def Lep records are killer (I think High ‘n’ Dry is insanely good), and you either politely tolerate Pyromania or you’re honest with yourself and admit that it’s killer too (it is). I feel like half this album is ballads the title track of this album is a ballad, so the band certainly were playing to their strengths. They still have a bit of bite, something this band just lost rapidly from here on out (further albums can not be justified) here, the ballads totally work. It has its shortfalls, but the good outweigh the bad, and, today, I’m going to justify the shit out of this thing.Īlso, let’s get this out of the way, and I say this as a Gore Beyond Necropsy fan, and a guy who has Def Leppard snuggled up next to Deeds of Flesh and Defeated Sanity on his computer: the ballads on this album are great. This time around, Greg Pratt defends Def Leppard’s Hysteria.Īdmittedly, this is going to be a tough sell, but Def Leppard‘s 1987 ultra-hit album Hysteria, which maybe you’ve heard of, and maybe you’re one of the 25 million people who bought the damn thing, ain’t half bad. Occasionally, a Decibel staffer or special guest will take to the Decibel site to bitch and moan at length as to why everybody’s full of shit and said dud is, in fact, The Shit. Almost every band has that album: you know, the critically and/or commercially reviled dud in an otherwise passable-to-radical back catalogue. ![]()
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