Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By ACDC, Sony Music 2020.
I usually try to limit the number of reviews I do for megastars but it’s a bit hard to ignore the first new album from ACDC in six years.
The Scottish boys who made it big in Australia and then conquered the world don’t need my help to sell albums after all they’ve sold more than 200 million records in their career.
I remember years ago Angus Young responding to a question from an interviewer who had the temerity to suggested that the band’s (then) latest album sounded like a re-hash of the previous one.
Angus retorted something along the lines that every song is a rehash of the last one and that they’d only ever written one original song.
It was said tongue-in-cheek but of course there was a cornel of truth in his assertion that we can all respond to.
Apart from that why would you change a winning formula when there’s no need to?
Power Up presents us with ACDC’s classic line-up minus the hugely important Malcolm Young who died a couple of years ago from dementia related illness.
In the last months of Malcolm’s life, Angus sat at his brother’s bedside and the two traded guitar licks.
Fortunately, Angus recorded those sessions and the album arose out of that material.
Power Up is the best ACDC album that I’ve heard in some time and it really is a tribute to Malcolm. Although he’s no longer with us his fingerprints are all over this disc.
Power Up does show us that ACDC are perfectly at home playing all forms of rock from their usual heavy riff-driven hard rock to even dabbling in some roots inspired blues.
There’s more variety on this album than I can remember on many of their more recent efforts, there’s also more musicality and less screaming from Brian Johnson’s vocals.
On tracks like Wild Reputation he’s even laid-back, well at least less strident than usual.
All the good ACDC stuff can been found here: the beautiful sparse power-riffing, the wonderfully clear (and trademark Angus) guitar solos, the tight and straight down the line bass and drums combination, it’s all present in spades.
The old formula devised by ACDC’s first producers, Harry Vanda and George Young (of Easybeats fame); all those years ago still works a treat.
