Def Leppard‘s collaborative album of re-recordings of 16 of their songs with London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Drastic Symphonies, is out today.
Recorded at London’s Abbey Road Studios, they intertwined audio from the original tapes and performed alongside the Orchestra. At different points you can hear Joe Elliott singing with his younger self. The album also includes new vocals and guitars.
But guitarist Phil Collen says when that when they were approached about the idea, they had one stipulation.
“We don’t want anyone messing with our stuff, so we actually needed full control over it. So, while we were doing all the Diamond Star Halo stuff (their last album), we started kind of getting this thing together — kind of reworking these songs, you know. Re-recorded some of them. Re-recorded certain parts. Got rid of instruments completely. Redone sounds and everything. And, over the period of the last year, we got it all finished. So here we are, a brand new album as well that sounds so radically different to anything we’ve ever done before.”
Drastic Symphonies is available on CD, black vinyl, colored vinyl, picture disc, CD/Blu-Ray (Atmos) and digitally.
Drastic Symphonies track list:
- “Turn to Dust”
- “Paper Sun”
- “Animal”
- “Pour Some Sugar on Me” (Stripped version)
- “Hysteria”
- “Love Bites”
- “Goodbye for Good This Time”
- “Love”
- “Gods of War”
- “Angels (Can’t Help You Now)”
- “Bringin’ on the Heartbreak”
- “Switch 625”
- “Too Late for Love”
- “When Love & Hate Collide”
- “Kings of the World”
- “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad” – vinyl & Atmos versions
