Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Grand Design
Label: AOR Heaven Records
Release: 2011
Running time: 49:08
Rating: 3.5/5
This band is unbelievable. They do exactly what Def Leppard did on “Hysteria”, “Adrenalize” and “Pyromania”. The Swedes have always been known as superb imitators, and what’s always carried them far is an innate fire for chasing perfection in everything they take on. This is a true Def Leppard tribute album to their AOR/melodic rock era, or rather a love letter to the days when Def Leppard were setting the sonic and stylistic standards for the amusement park of the whole planet’s rock map (these days, sadly, they’re only trailing behind it, and not very successfully).
Every true melodic rock fanatic has to give this album a spin, because if you’re cut from the real melodic rock dough, the essence of those Def Leppard records runs through your veins. Of course, all this begs the rhetorical question of where objectivity ends when judging the quality of this album, especially once we start measuring it by the yardstick of its own songwriting insight, which, let’s be honest, there’s precious little of here. Luckily, vocalist Palle Saether isn’t Joe Elliot, even if he tries to be in places, and yet, when his vocals “hide” under a thick coat of multi-vocal harmonies in the production, the feeling that it’s the real Def Leppard playing on the album gets even stronger. The resemblance between copy and original is astonishing. At times so astonishing that you stop knowing whether to take “Idolizer” as some kind of joke and parody, or seriously.
With their debut “Time Elevation” (2009), Grand Design were already shamelessly flirting with the territory of the Def Leppard albums cited above, and “Idolizer” brings nothing new. If anything, it blurs the sonic and expressive nuances even more, while drawing even more shamelessly from the basic production blueprints of those Leppard albums. Even the promo material that comes with the promotional CD describes the album (in advance) as a Def Leppard classic.
Let’s quickly run through the in-jokes on the album. Take a ballad-leaning track like Your Love’s Runaway, and it’s clear the Hysteria template was looking over its shoulder; in Get On With The Action you’ll find parallels with Armageddon It, Stealin’ My Love leans toward Too Late For Love, the Leppard classic Let’s Get Rocked can be recognized in Grand Design’s anthem Rock Back To The 80s , the song Outogrpah, in the chant of its multi-vocal harmonies “outogpraph”, can’t help but lean on Photograph, even though the chorus is wired differently, and Addiction To Love is a reminder of Love Bites. More deviation from the Leppard-classics flirtation can be found in Lets Rawk The Night and/or You Are Gonna Dig, but we can’t escape the Leppard in-jokes there either once we factor in the production.
With his sound work for the Australians White Widdow on “Serenade” (2011), Palle Saether showed he can revive typical “eighties” sonic structures with his eyes closed, and his work on Grand Design’s “Idolizer” confirms the guy is a bona fide AOR wizard, since you can hardly go higher than mastering the production blueprints of those three classic Leppard albums. Once that principle clicks, all the secrets of the anthemic, arena-built bombast of classic AOR rhetoric and the melodic rock punchline of the eighties are laid bare. So living in the past can be very useful, too.
First off, you’ll have to swallow a bit of spit if the copying bugs you, because otherwise it’s all woven together superbly. The album is loaded with bombast, with hungry, ultra-catchy chorus hooks that ignite on the very first listen. The songs are polished to a high shine, bursting at the seams with sonic perfection and arrangement perfection. This is an album that works best spinning in a CD player on a night drive or during bedroom activities with your favorite girl. No two ways about it. The band’s obsession with Def Leppard never lets up on it. Not for a second.
Lineup
Pelle Saether – vocals
Peter Ledin – guitar
Dennis Vestman – guitar
Anders Modd – bass guitar
Richard Holmgren – drums
Production
Pelle Saether
Track list
1. Get On With The Action
2. Change Me Up
3. OughtoGraugh
4. You Love’s A Runaway
5. Stealin’ My Love
6. Let’s Rawk The Nite
7. Addiction For Love
8. Idolize Me
9. Rock Back To The 80s
10. You’re Gonna Dig On It
