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Thursday, November 6, 2008

CD Review: AC/DC - Black Ice




In nature  some animals imprint. This normally occurs at birth and is a method for improving their chances of survival. For example a new born duck imprints on the first duck-like moving thing it sees, and learns to follow this in convoy style (or so is my limited understanding from Microsoft Encarta). Why am I explaining this?

Well, the first truly cool music I heard was AC/DC. Up until then it had always been stuff like ABBA, Boney M, etc that never really moved me. The moment that George brought his AC/DC albums to school I was intrigued. Once I heard it on a decent sound system - it had imprinted. Therefore I’ll be honest from the outset here – there was no way that I was not going to like this album. I have always believed that AC/DC are the greatest band around, I love Angus’ guitar playing style, and their songs always cheer me up!

There have been some mediocre albums, but over the years, every album has had great songs to offer with new ways of saying the same thing offered, and also new things to say. So, I don’t think that I am like the Robert De Niro Rolling Stones fan in ‘The Fan’ in that I can admit to being a bit more realistic in my expectations of the band.

I do however imagine AC/DC sitting in their well-deserved lap of luxury, being stumped and agonizing over how to keep things fresh and vital after so many years. And my view is that I wish that they would not do that. Get in the studio, make a whole lot of hard driving boogie rock and roll, add lyrics about all the rude jokes and innuendos that you can think of and take it from there – what could be easier? Keep it greasy and menacing with lots of sinister sounding backing vocals. The guitar should be razor sharp, slicing through the clutter that invades my day and the riffing should massage my brain in the way that a physiotherapist would treat your lower back (i.e. not too gently, but it feels great when it stops). The thing is, in my view, AC/DC fans probably are not looking for something that’s too different, as long as it rocks, and gives them a new excuse to pump some seminal AC/DC out of their stereos. They have done enormous bell gongs, and cannons firing, and I suppose it is difficult to top that in the 2000’s? I, of course, would like cannons on every album, but am prepared to admit that they may come across as overused to other none cannon preferring listeners (at least they’re included on most of the live albums). In addition, most of my experiences with AC/DC albums have resulted in some type of damage – AC/DC ‘Live’ resulted in me accidentally breaking the volume button on my car stereo, ‘Back in Black’ broke some speakers, you get the idea. This has sort of become an expectation too….. in short I want to be Thunderstruck! That looks easy enough…….

So, what have they done with ‘Black Ice’?

Well, I’ve listened to it in the car on the way home from the shop, I listened to it twice on the stereo at home and I have listened to it again driving to work and back (it’s an extremely listenable album).

They have made another AC/DC album – that’s what. It’s all in here: the straight ahead AC/DC style boogie rockers, the various innuendoes, the fantastic Young brother’s guitar sound, the rock solid and booming rhythm section and the high spirits. Also, they have slowed things down on a couple of songs, and offered some new things like some that almost sound like Pop songs. To me there is no shock and horror related to this (the slowing down that is), I have always enjoyed songs like ‘Ride On’ and ‘Night Prowler’ and have believed that this element of their oeuvre has been neglected on the last few albums. Even the most classic of their albums such as ‘Highway to Hell’ includes tracks such as ‘Touch too Much’ or ‘Love Hungry Man’ which in my view are pretty ‘light’.


They have also not remained impervious to the world around them. Both lyrically and musically, the 2000’s have had an influence. For example ‘Anything Goes’ and ‘War machine can be musically linked to offerings by younger bands such as the Killers and The Raconteurs (the guitar reminds me a lot of ‘Born in the USA’ era Springsteen). However, there have always been moments when AC/DC have displayed a lighter touch.
On ‘Rock 'n' Roll Dream’ Johnson sounds like a cloth capped version of Grace Slick, Stevie Nicks and the Wilson sisters all rolled into one. Maybe he has believed that all this time, he doesn’t do slow (the last slow AC/DC songs coming from Bon Scott). Well here he does, and it comes across well.

My Favourite track thus far: ‘She Likes Rock ‘n’ Roll’.

But, essentially, the question is: ‘Is this a good album’ i.e. ‘Is this as good as Highway to Hell or Back in Black’? The answer is not as easy. When I first heard those albums I was still in my teens. They resonated with my life at the time. How do I look at ‘Black Ice’: from the point of view of a teenage boy and the minimal baggage that comes with that, or from the point of view of a middle-aged male? While I believe that I am more in touch with my inner teenager than most, I will stick to the middle-aged view for the sake of honesty. After all the ‘boys’ in the band are even older than me, so let’s say that we have all ‘moved on a bit’. The sound and the music are great, what may be missing is the same level of humour in the lyrics that I have come to know and love. In that sense I think that this is a good album certainly better than “Fly on the Wall’ and ‘Flick of the Switch’, probably somewhere between ‘For those about to Rock’ and ‘Stiff Upper Lip’. I will say this: if you like AC/DC, you will like this album!

From a teenaged kid’s point of view amongst the clutter of itunes, ipods, MTV, hormones and insecurity, I don’t think that we will get an opinion on the album as a whole, and that is how the band want us to view it – a complete album.

In a career and history where the band has received so much from Rock and Roll, it is refreshing to see how much they are prepared to give back. I don’t think that they ‘need’ to make albums anymore, and that said, if they were only doing this to keep out of the way of the wife and kids at home it probably would have sounded terrible. But they have been dead serious about this and it shows. I believe that this is the underlying lesson relating to this band – it is not all about taking only, to succeed you also need to give, and these guys do so with all of their collective hearts and two big balls each too.