Drastic Symphonies is a remix album by English rock band Def Leppard with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, released on 19 May 2023 through Bludgeon Riffola and Mercury Records. It was produced by Nick Patrick and Ronan McHugh, and contains 16 of the band's songs re-recorded with orchestral accompaniment from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and arrangements by Eric Gorfain,[1] recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London in March 2022.[2] Most tracks contain the vocals from the original recordings.[2] The album contains at least one song from Def Leppard's previous studio albums with the exception of On Through the Night (1980), X (2002), Yeah! (2006), and Def Leppard (2015).
John Aizlewood of Classic Rock commented that Def Leppard "have gone down the orchestral route" but "done it properly, so it's the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at Abbey Road, rather than some chancers in Joe's garage" and remarked that "the song selection is smart" and "one of the joys of the album is that it's not quite so predictable".[3] Gary Graff of Ultimate Classic Rock wrote that "the results are unquestionably intriguing and fresh – a genuinely new way of approaching these tracks, even if you'd be hard-pressed to pick any that would become the preferred version", and called the "only outright dud" the stripped version of "Pour Some Sugar on Me" due to its lyrics "sound[ing] silly in such austere sonic trappings".[1]
