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AC/DC's Black Ice: a rock masterpiece

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Eight years between albums is an eternity for rock bands. Hell, The Beatles created their entire groundbreaking oeuvre in as much time, and still made room for films, tours, drugs, the Maharishi, Yoko Ono, you name it.

But somehow, eight years doesn't feel too long to wait for AC/DC. And when they deliver an album as satisfying and fortifying as Black Ice, their timing feels just right.

Maybe it's because we need AC/DC now more than ever. Too many bands have Xeroxed the formula without realizing you can't steal the soul. And the soul of AC/DC - gut-level sonic force and sheer comic insanity (like a grown man parading around in a schoolboy's uniform; who would dream up such a thing?) - is an alchemy no other band can hope to copy, simply because AC/DC invented the formula and swallowed it whole.

You wonder why some groups even try. All they do is make you long for the original.

Back In Blacker?

Call AC/DC's Black Ice 'Back In Blacker' and you wouldn't be far off. With the exception of a couple of cuts midway through, every song kicks a donkey's ass and then some, and they magically make you feel like you're 16 years old again and on the precipice of...well, everything. Power chords ripple up and down your spine, drum beats shake you all night long and every solo positively shoots to thrill. You catchin' my drift? Yeah, it's that kind of album. The kind of album that makes you feel invincible.

Producer Brendan O'Brien does something miraculous in that you don't notice him at all. That's not a dig either; wisely, he doesn't impose his own rules or sonic footprint on the band's hallowed roar. As Mutt Lange did on the classics Highway To Hell and Back In Black, O'Brien allows AC/DC's wall of sound to crash all around you, but it's not a wash of stacked tracks. It's spacious yet enormous.

On Black Ice, you hear every one of Phil Rudd's cymbal crashes, every pluck of Cliff Williams's bass - and the chugging dual guitars of Angus and Malcolm Young work together like well-oiled pistons. Clarity and precision never sounded so delightfully raucous, so un-fussed over. This is assured rock 'n' roll, no doubt, but it's rock 'n' roll art too - and that ain't a bad place to be.

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AC/DC's Black Ice - track-by-track

Rock 'N Roll Train
You've probably heard it already, and it's a dynamite opener. Unmistakable Angus riff, thumping beat - instantly, you know who this band is. And what happened to Brian Johnson's voice? In the past, he always sounded as though he was about to blow his aorta hitting his notes.

Either time has allowed him to grow into his voice or his voice merely caught up to him, but his singing is full and gutsy. Angus is chomping at the bit to get to his solo - he starts playing before the second chorus is even over, and good for him, for it's a stunner.

"Every song kicks a donkey's ass"