AC/DC’S ENDLESS HIGHWAY TO HELL
The hard-rock heroes haven’t lost a step on their best album in 20 years
For decades, ac/dc have defended their devil-horned crown as rock’s most stubborn band. They’ve survived deaths (singer Bon Scott in 1980, guitarist Malcolm Young in 2017) and dirty deeds (drummer Phil Rudd was placed on house arrest after threatening to kill a man). Yet, they remain eternally committed to their core values: rocking out, hailing Satan, and never going within an outback mile of a ballad. Power Up is their first LP since 2014, and their best since 1990’s The Razors Edge. Many of the riffs, which came from lead guitarist Angus Young and his late brother’s archive, recall their greatest hits — the sidewinding blooze of “Demon Fire” is a distant relative of “Whole Lotta Rosie”; the throbbing intro to “Witch’s Spell” harks back to “Who Made Who” — and singer Brian Johnson’s voice still sounds like angry truck exhaust, whether he’s huffing about tearin’ up the highway on “Code Red,” or prescribing sex three times a day as a depression cure on “Money Shot.”
There is a small bit of introspect on the gentle (by AC/DC standards) rocker “Through the Mists of Time,” on which Johnson sings about “dark shadows on the walls.” But soon enough, he’s back yowling about “painted ladies,” and Young is whipping out another high-voltage blues solo. That’s what makes AC/DC great: No matter what they’ve gone through, they can only be themselves.