Review Summary: A flawed, but nonetheless strong, addition to the restricted pantheon of modern hard rock classics.
Some bands set out to revolutionise the music world, expanding on or perfecting an existing style until it becomes their own, and often unknowingly giving way to an entire new trend. Other bands, however, are perfectly content just to emulate their idols, paying tribute to the style that they love and having some fun in the process.
Such a band are Australian hard rockers Airbourne, a group that is often – and correctly – described as “80s AC/DC worship”. And in fact, nothing the O’Keefe brothers have ever come up with has made any kind of effort to hide their one, overwhelming influence. Neither, however, have the band themselves, and it is this honest attitude that keeps Airbourne from being dismissed as complete rip-offs, and makes most music reviewers dismiss them as just a sub-par band instead.
Even this categorisation, however, can be construed as a touch unfair, especially in light of what the band offer in their most famous album to date, sophomore effort
Runnin’ Wild. Sure, debut
Ready To Rock and follow up
No Guts, No Glory may be far from stellar releases, but on their second album the band get nearly everything right, and certainly stake a claim for the throne of “modern retro” hard rock.
As with their other releases, the prevalent sound on
Runnin’ Wild is easy to describe:
Back In Black to
Flick Of The Switch-era AC/DC. Everything on this album – from the crunching power chords to the simple, yet irresistible percussion work – smacks of the O’Keefe’s more famous countrymen, and only Joel O’Keefe’s vocal register – closer to a raspy bark than to Brian Johnson’s trademark yelp – clues the listener in to the fact that they are listening to a different band.
Overall, the rip-offism is just as bad here as on early Krokus albums or on the Rhino Bucket discography. But surprisingly, unlike with those other albums, it works. The O’Keefes never set out to be anything
but the new AC/DC, and any listener who approaches the album with that mindset will most certainly have a good time with
Runnin’ Wild. The song-writing, while derivative, is quite strong, and even the repetitive choruses which plagued the band’s other two releases are kept to a minimum, meaning the songs seldom cross the line from “just dumb” to “asinine” the way those on
Ready To Rock did.
The early goings of the album are particularly strong. If there is one thing Airbourne have always had a knack for, it is an intro, and the one on
Stand Up For Rock’N’Roll sets the perfect mood for the rest of the release. By the time the slow crescendo explodes into a fast AC/DC boogie, the listener is already in a rockin’ mood, and the following few songs do little to dampen this natural high. Track such as
Runnin’ Wild, Too Much, Too Young, Too Fast or first standout
Diamond In The Rough keep the quality on high until literally midway through the album, when
Fat City marks the first slight dip. Even that, however, is offset by the double-whammy punch of the furious
Blackjack and the stellar
What’s Eatin’ You, which stands side by side with
Steel Town as the best song in the band’s career and definitely dampens the impact of that first bit of filler.
Here, however, is where the problems start. After
What’s Eatin’ You, the quality of the song-writing plummets, to the extent that the last four songs on the album almost threaten to undo all the good their predecessors have done.
Cheap Wine And Cheaper Women is a decent song, if only because it is a virtual note-for-note re-write of AC/DC’s similarly decent
Have A Drink On Me;
Heartbreaker, Hellfire and especially
Girls In Black, however, are nothing but declared filler, which do nothing to improve the quality of the album as a whole, and instead leave the listener a little deflated at the end of the 37 minutes.
All in all, however, these flaws are not enough to totally spoil what is an otherwise immensely enjoyable hard rock album. Judging by the rest of the band’s output, it seems unlikely that Airbourne will ever be able to top their sophomore release, but that doesn’t mean
Runnin’ Wild should not be enjoyed for what it is: a strong addition to the restricted pantheon of modern hard rock classics.
Recommended Tracks
Diamond In The Rough
Blackjack
What’s Eatin’ You
