Hey, guess what? It’s time for another Listening Post. Well, not really. This is just an update. Go back into the archives and check out the AC/DC retro from last summer. Since then the boys from down under put out a new album, refused to sell tracks on iTunes, sold a monster amount and actually found me devil horning in concert at The Forum. So, how is the new one?
AC/DC – Black Ice – 2008 (buy it…at Wal-Mart)
It’s good. Okay? Is it Back in Black? Guess what I’m gonna say?
You’re wrong.
Gotcha. No. you’re right. It’s not better than BiB. But it is the best album of theirs since then. Go back and look at those reviews. After BiB it’s a vast wasteland of shit. And then along comes BI and I gotta tell ya: Big Jack? With his big sack? yeah, he kicks ass. Anything Goes? It’s like revisiting The Cars by way of metal.
The biggest problem with Black Ice? it’s too long. Yep. That’s right. it’s too long by more half.
The greatest albums of the 70s were 35-40 minutes tops. AC/DC’s were note perfect examples of this.
Then the CD came in and everything HAD to be 60+ minutes. Well, as a song writer, i will tell you that I don’t have 60 minutes of top notch music in me. I can pull off 30. Like a stand up who has 20 great minutes but when pressed for a longer set, he falls apart, that’s what the CD did to music.
And you don’t have 70 minutes to devote to an album. You have 40. Twenty on the way to work and twenty on the way home.
That’s perfect.
Chop off Rock and Roll Dream, a meandering, semi plodding, 80s-esque retread. Dump the insipid Smash and Grab…..you get the point.
Black Ice is a really good AC/DC album. Pound for Pound it’s right up there with Highway to Hell, the weakest of the Bon Scott offerings (if that’s the weakest, this band was doing something right.)
If you like the formula, you will dig the rekkid.
Grade B+
A-Side: Rock n Roll Train, Money Made, Big Jack, Anything Goes, Black Ice, War Machine
BlindSide: Too early for that, folks.
Downside: Smash and Grab, Spoiling for a Fight, Rock n Roll Dream, She likes Rock n Roll, oh, heck, they aren’t downsides as much as they weight the album down. Drop two more and the album is spectacular.
