We were driving home from Syracuse, a college visit trip that extended into our wedding anniversary. It was a beautiful late autumn drive, seeing the huge windmills scattered across as we drove over and through there Catskill mountains. The playlist was banging out tunes, and when “Wasted” came on my wife had no idea it was Def Leppard. There’s something about On Through The Night, that first album that sounds like a 70s album even though it came out in 1980. It’s just raw and rough and fun in a way the ultra-polish of the Robert “Mutt” Lang years would lose, despite the many accolades and dollars his production would bring to the band. That song led to a rabbit hole of early 80s hard rock that I still haven’t relinquished almost two weeks later, so why not dig in and understand what about this debut I like so much?

I mean, it’s easy to hear why : bookending the album is the driving attack of “Rock Brigade” to kick things off and the progressive NWOBHM epic “Overture” to wrap things off. In between are all sorts of pros and cons as to why you can side with either Joe Elliott’s assertion that Def Leppard were always a glam rock band in the vein of Sweet and Spade or the metal’s community footnote that this – and especially the ’79 EP were part of the NWOBHM wave that turned so many teens heads, mine included.

But let’s start at the top. And by “top” I mean the album cover. I love it. From the “not-quite-right” logo (why does the top “D” stick out of the triangle like that?) to the weird but appropriate image of a tractor trailer carting a massive across outer space – did they come from the moon? – It’s a hilarious and delightful take on the album title. Also they have the band’s name on it twice, just in case you couldn’t read the logo, I guess? It’s a well-intentioned mess, better than High ‘n’ Dry in my humble opinion.

The twin guitar attack of Steve Clark (RIP) and Pete Willis would only be together for this one album, but “Rock Brigade” shows them locked in tight with a propulsive rocker that has enough 70s swagger to point to the glam, but those marching boots and the second half of the solo point to heavier shores. Joe Elliott sounds great; you can already hear the high harmonies that would drive him and the band to stardom. Every time I want to bag on “Hello America” I can’t because of his voice (especially when he pronounces it “Californ-I-A”) and how innocently fun the lyrics are.

Do I want to boogie all over town?

Yes. Yes, I do,

“Sorrow Is A Woman” is another great example of the band straddling the line between glam and metal. The chime of the verses belies the crash of the drums and the harmonized guitar licks when the chorus arrives. And “It Could Be You” could easily with a different set of lyrics be a track off Iron Maiden’s debut – I can easily hear Paul Di’Anno (RIP) singing it. The Thom Allen production is maybe a little thin but Rick Savage’s bass is never not present, and it lends a certain bite to the guitars that I think gets lost in the beefier production and arrangement that would come with Lang’s guidance. On the other side of the coin, I think “Satellite” is a fantastic song that gets a little too harsh, causing the intricacy of the chorus to feel a little buzzy and the solos to sound too think and brittle.

But when it works, On Through The Night works like gangbusters. In addition to the above tracks, I dig the apocalyptic seriousness that permeates the heavy Thin Lizzy-inspired rocker “When The Walls Came Tumbling Down” and the chugging riff of “Wasted”. I’m less enthused with the faux live vibe that “Rocks Off” has, but the song itself is fine. Same with the southern-fried “It Don’t Matter” which if I think about is the perfect late album track, kinda lost in the shuffle and there to pad this out to full-length status. That all changes with the final two tracks. There was a period in my youth when I would swear the opening riff to “Answer To The Master” was one of the best riffs in the world. I still love it, and I love when Elliott crams the title in as the chorus. The bridge is great, and Savage’s bass is everywhere. Clark’s solo? C’mon…so good.

And the closing seven-plus minutes that is “Overture”? I’d argue that both musically and lyrically it’s one of the best hard rock closing tracks ever. There, I said it.

On Through The Night may not have been my introduction to Def Leppard (that was almost certainly Pyromania) but oddly enough it’s the one I tend to revisit more than any of their other albums.

It’s probably the cover.