Review Summary: I used to think Highway To Hell was AC/DC's best album. But then along came this one to change my mind...
As most of you will know by now, I’m a nearly lifelong AC/DC fan. I first had contact with them shortly after turning ten, and a passion was sparked that lasts to this very day. In the following years, I was all about
Jailbreak and
Highway To Hell. To a lesser degree, I liked
Back In Black, too. But there was always a fourth record that I could never “get” into, no matter how many times I loaned it from the library. The cover was cool and all, but the sound was far too subdued for someone who – at the time – was all about the electric stylings of Kurt Cobain and Billie Joe Armstrong . That album was 1975’s
High Voltage.
Unsurprisingly, this became the last item in my quest to acquire every AC/DC album. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I got it, at a time when I had already compiled every other release from the Young brothers. However, as soon as I laid ears on this, I realised the error of my ways.
I guess ten years really can change a person’s musical taste, because right now,
High Voltage has dethroned
Highway to Hell from its seemingly perennial top spot in my personal AC/DC discography. This just might be the
real masterpiece in the group’s roster, and is undoubtedly the strongest set of songs ever penned by Angus and company, even though it is actually – ironically enough – a best-of compilation from the group’s first two Australian releases. In fact, even the title itself is ironic, since the bulk of this album is actually taken from the group’s debut,
TNT, with only two songs coming from the eponymous
High Voltage.
Never mind the technicalities, though – the fact is, it’s damn good. From the moment
It’s A Long Way To The Top comes blaring through your speakers, you know you’re in for one heck of a ride. From there until the closing title track, not a single song is laid to waste, and all of them present at least one point of interest for the listener. For example, the comparatively pedestrian
She’s Got Balls is rescued by a commited performance by Bon Scott, which manages to overcome Angus and Malcolm’s strangely plodding riff.
And this brings us to the first big selling point of this album: the late, great Ronald Belford Scott. Bon is at the top of his game here, running the gamut from grittily earnest (
Rock’n’Roll Singer) to wink-and-nudge mischievous (
The Jack, Little Lover) to everything in between, and doing so with seemingly effortless ease. Even in the songs that were leftover from the prehistoric Dave Evans period, such as
Can I Sit Next To You Girl (actually a re-recording of a track previously released in the group’s historical first maxi-single, with Evans on vocals) his performance is so passionate and commited that you feel like you’re listening to his real life stories. And if
Rock’n’Roll Singer isn’t an autobiography of the man itself, it does a pretty good job of convincing us otherwise.
But while Bon is the star of this show, he splits the bill with another legendary AC/DC character. At barely 20 years of age, Angus delivers some of the best solos of his career, as well as teaming up with Malcolm to deliver the crunchy guitar riffs and bluesy guitar licks that would become synonymous with the band. His lead sections are a particular highlight, consisting of the type of solo that you can easily turn into a vocal melody – think
You Shook Me All Night Long or
Thunderstruck. Other times, he delivers a snaking lead that flows smoothly on top of Malcolm’s blues-rock riffage (
Rock’n’Roll Singer, The Jack), or even a slightly more shredding solo, such as in
Live Wire. All in all, one of the most confident performances in the diminutive devil’s illustrious career.
The other two players – drummer Phil Rudd and bass man Mark Evans – are left with little to do, apart from backing up the three luminaries. Still, Evans leaves his mark on the strong and solid rhythms of
Live Wire and
TNT, as well as in the somewhat more complicated pattern of the title track. Rudd, on the other hand, has a dynamic performance, keeping time in the patented AC/DC beat, but not shying away from interesting drum fills - something that he has abandoned in later years, as anyone who has heard
Black Ice will undoubtedly tell you.
“Okay then”, I hear you say, “so the musicianship is top-notch. But are the songs any good?” Why yes, they are. In fact, apart from
She’s Got Balls, they can be considered excellent. From the rousing fist-pumping
It’s A Long Way To The Top to the captivating chorus of
High Voltage, through the stomping rhythm of
Can I Sit Next To You Girl, this is an unbelievably strong set of songs. Even
The Jack, which usually sounds like little more than an excuse for Angus to let loose, benefits from hilariously tongue-in-cheek lyrics filled with thinly-veiled sexual innuendo. Bon was the master of the double-entendre and he shows why on this song, with his description of a rather sexy game of cards. As for
Can I Sit Next to You Girl, it suffers from slight over-repetition of the chorus, but makes up for it with great soloing and riffing.
So what’s bad about this one? Well, not much, apart from the aforementioned
She’s Got Balls and certain sections of
Little Lover. Everything else about this album is utterly perfect. In fact, this is such a frequent flyer in my CD drive that – apart from the two previously mentioned songs – I practically know this album note by note. When it came time to review it, the two perfunctory listens served more as reminders of what I couldn’t remember than as a real assessment of the album. I had long known just what I was going to write and just what the rating for the album would be, and my mind hasn’t changed one bit. If you don’t already have this album, get it. Listen to it. Fall in love with it. You can thank me later.
Recommended Tracks
It’s A Long Way To The Top
Rock’n’Roll Singer
Live Wire
Can I Sit Next To You Girl
High Voltage
