Review Summary: Old school AC/DC. If you like hard/classic rock, pick this up.
AC/DC is:
Angus Young-Lead Guitar
Malcolm Young-Guitar
Bon Scott-Vocals
Phil Rudd-Drums
Mark Evans-Bass Guitar
AC/DC has come along way since their international debut
High Voltage released in 1976. Some of their greatest hits are on this album including
The Jack and
TNT. If you are a fan of AC/DC hen this album is a must. Allow me to explain...
Firstly, this is AC/DC's most old school release (it
is their international debut album) which a good thing. The driving guitar riffs, the melodic solo's, the powerful vocals provided by Bon Scott were all fascinating. But after a while I started to lose interest mainly because I discovered some more complicated bands such as
Van Halen,
Rush and
Megadeth which were a little more intersting to me. I still love this album though. Something about it jut made me want to rock out to it again after a long time of ignoring it.
The guitar sound on
High Voltage has less distortion than any of AC/DC's other releases, but is a repectable sound. Some of the guitar when the notes ring for a while seem very unconsistant, almost as if some notes were ringing when they weren't supposed to [Check out the song
Live Wire at the beginning). I think that the guitar tone on this album is the best sounding one on any AC/DC record to date, but some of the guitar riffs were very novice level guitar riffs. Like the riff on
TNT. Any beginner guitarist could hve wrote that, but then again the Young brothers were young then.
The drums and bass are very simple, but the vocal styles of Bon Scott are some of the best vocals out there, and are very fitting to the music. Although Bon's voice may tend to annoy many people, he is still one of the most respected vocalists out there (ranked #5 on
Best Heavy Metal Vocalists list on Hit Parader magazine). His voice seems to be high pitched, fun, and whiney which is a good thing. The band questioned the continuance of AC/DC when he died in February 1980.
Bon's lyrics are rarely bad. Some of them are pure genius, like this exerpt from
Rock N Roll Singer:
I left school
And grew my hair
They didn't understand
They wanted me to be repected as
A doctor or a lawyer man...
...but I had other plans
Gonna be a rock and roll singer...
Bon still remains one of my favourite lyricists to date. RIP.
Guitar solo's on this album are not to be missed because Angus Young is one of the best guitarists around, but I think he is somewhat overrated. Angus usually ranks in the Top 5 of any "Best Guitarists" list, but he should be scaled back a little bit. To me, there are plenty of guitarists better than him that rank way further back on those lists (ie: Alex Lifeson, Brian May, etc.). I feel that Angus misses a lot of notes sometimes when he plays live, although a very entertaining live performer. But he does write and perform some of the most memorable guitar licks out there. One example from this album is the solo on
The Jack. The bagpipe solo on
It's A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock And Roll) adds a very nice touch to the song
Some of the slower tunes on this album (
The Jack and
Little Lover) are some of the albums best tunes. But the hard rockers such as
Rock N Roll Singer,
TNT, and
She's Got Balls are more appealing to me. More exciting to listen to and a lot more fun to play in your band.
Well there you have it. My 10th full review. I think it was pretty well explained. Votes are appreciated, thanks.
Recommended Tracks
Rock And Roll Singer
TNT
Little Lover
She's Got Balls
