Band:	Def Leppard
Album:	Euphoria
Style:	Hard rock
Release date:	April 1999
Guest review by:	Hermann Langke

01. Demolition Man
02. Promises
03. Back In Your Face
04. Goodbye
05. All Night
06. Paper Sun
07. It's Only Love
08. 21st Century Sha La La La Girl
09. To Be Alive
10. Disintegrate
11. Guilty
12. Day After Day
13. Kings Of Oblivion

Every true rock fan or a metalhead must have had one defining moment in their lives. This moment generally comes about when seeing their favourite act live in concert or when inspired by their favourite bands launching their own band or maybe when purchasing the album which made them fans in the first place. In my case, this musically defining moment was when I bought Euphoria in 1999. I was only 10 then and I instantly fell in love with Def Leppard after watching their video "Promises" on our local music channel. I became glue-eyed, literally, when I saw them! But wait, I am not writing and ode to Def Leppard but a review for their 1999 album Euphoria and incidentally this was my first ever personally owned record!

The album opens with "Demolition Man" and I was blown away by it's opening riff. It almost sounded like a heavy metal riff to my tender ears! It is great song both musically and lyrically and in the middle parts gets really heavy, albeit in a pop metal way! "Back In Your Face" is an inspirational song which is, in a way, a testament to their tenacity and resilience that even after grievous personal losses, like the death of their former guitarist Steven Clark and drummer Rick Allen losing his arm in a car accident, they are still kicking and strong. It is also a jab to the critics who opined that Def Leppard are out of business following the grunge explosion of the 90's. Songs like "Paper Sun" and "Day After Day" are heavier than the standard pop metal thoroughfare but they, all the same, also cannot be considered as heavy metal songs. "Goodbye" is a superb love song which I could dedicate to a girlfriend I never had and it is also my favourite track from Euphoria. "Disintegrate" is an instrumental number and who would have thought that a band like Def Leppard would write an instrumental number!

Euphoria is a smashing return to form by a band that, believe it or not, was a front runner of the NWOBHM scene. It contains sappy ballads but also distinctively heavy songs and those that fall in between. Although Euphoria is light-years away from their original NWOBHM sound, it is, nonetheless, a classic in it's own right. I become a rock n' roll fan and later a metalhead solely because of this album and I know very well what this album means to me. Without it I wouldn't even have been writing this review.