CD review: Black Ice - AC/DC

[KiwiCoromandel]

The new AC/DC album, Back in Black - sorry, sorry. The new AC/DC album, Highway to Hell. No, that's not it either. Er, the new AC/DC album, Dirty Deeds?

No, no, it's there above, that's right, Black Ice - the new AC/DC album sounds unmistakably and almost exactly like every other AC/DC album that has been released.

This, of course, is a good thing. If it were any other band, we might bemoan the lack of change, the inability to reinvent, the paucity of musical ideas falling quickly into a wash, rinse, repeat cycle.

But not with Acca Dacca mate! That's what we want, and the opening track, Rock 'n' Roll Train really is about as vintage as you can get.

Phil Rudd is still unflappable in laying down his 4/4 beat, Angus and Malcolm Young are still churning out the sublime three-chord riffs for Angus to peel back a few layers of squalling solo over, and Brian Johnson is still, in most people's eyes, a weak stand-in for Bon Scott.

But hey, he'll do. He's been there for nearly 30 years now, so he might as well carry on.

Yip, Black Ice is business as usual, in the best possible way, meaning that the band's lyrical approach, as ever, is the musical equivalent of a caveman painting.

Johnson indulges his Andy Capp-derived persona with Spoiling for a Fight, and instead of Back in Black, there's Black Ice, instead of The Jack, there's Big Jack, and no fewer than four songs contain "rock" in the title.

Business as usual means that while these are fine songs for workshops the world over and the volume dial having an extra layer of grease smeared across it, boredom kicks in about two-thirds of the way through, as with most AC/DC albums, except for Back in Black and Dirty Deeds.

It's more of a hark back to the rhythm and blues roots than the less interesting albums in the AC/DC canon (Flick of the Switch, Ballbreaker). I'd put it on a par with The Razor's Edge.

The highlights are awesome; the average stuff is, well, average. But this band knows that.

As Johnson said, brilliantly walking the fine line between clever and stupid, "rock'n'roll is rock'n'roll".

source:Simon Sweetman/The Dominion Post

image:The Dominion Post