GRAND DESIGN: "Idolizer"

Rating: 4/10

Label: RAOR Heaven 2011

Review by Alan Holloway

A couple of years ago, our own Kimmo Toivonen said of Swedden’s Grand Design that “the Def Leppard influence is so overbearing”, and boy, he wasn’t kidding. It seems that they are quite happy to be known as Leppard clones, however, because they’ve not changed a bit in the intervening 2 years, and “Idoliser” (shit, even the album title is like a Def Lep one) is yet another album the Sheffield superstars never got round to making.

There’s really two ways to take this sort of thing. You can be angry that Grand Design are basically a bunch of rip off merchants, with many tracks being close to carbon copies of Leps standards, or you can sit back and enjoy what are, after all, good melodic rock songs. Well, I tried the latter, but the former kept bubbling to the top, I’m afraid. I accept that it’s hard to be truly original in the melodic rock genre, but to so blatantly take off another band is pretty shameful.

So if you want a Leppard clone album with such godawful titles as “Let’s Rawk The Nite” or “OughttoGraugh” then this is certainly the album for you. To be totally fair, the music is really very catchy, the harmonies good and the songs harmless melodic fluff with catchy tunes. The low score is because every time you listen to it you will, track by track, be aware of just which Def Leppard song they are plagiarizing, and that sours what would otherwise be a fun listening experience.

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