Even when Def Leppard were one of the biggest bands in the world, their leather trousers, ludicrous mullets and irony-free songs meant that they were never exactly one of the coolest. Credit where it's due, however - instead of retiring to enjoy their (considerable) fortunes, the Sheffield rockers have come back with another album they must know is likely to get them nothing but even more critical grief. Recorded in singer Joe Elliott's home studio in Dublin, their tenth outing (hence the title X), is an outlandishly over the top collection of metal headbangers and tearstained ballads, much of which recalls everything that was bad about the bloated 1980s. No sign of any creative development, then - but while X won't win any awards for originality, it has some undeniably catchy tunes, endearingly mindless lyrics and is all rather entertaining in a peculiarly dumb kind of way. Def Leppard may be over the hill, but they've surely earned the right to a little self-indulgence - and there are far more offensive sounds than that of ageing rockers growing old disgracefully.
