HIGH VOLTAGE


EPIC

Every home should have at least one AC/DC album. Most likely it'll be 1980's Back In Black: that their most famous album is also their best is somehow fitting for a band whose genius lies in an endless repetition of the obvious. AC/DC's precision, granite-cracking boogie, sky-bothering choruses and artless lust never sounded better than here, even though singer Brian Johnson—Benny Hill in an iron lung, ostensibly—had only been a member of the band for two months.

Now digitally remastered and with plentiful sleevenotes, most AC/DC albums have their charms. But beyond Back In Black, the most consistent date from the Bon Scott-fronted '70s line-up. Of these, the '76 UK debut High Voltage just shades '79's Highway To Hell, if only because it proves the band that was playing Melbourne fight clubs sounded frighteningly similar—a little production gloss notwithstanding—to the one at home in Midwestern stadia. A pleasure, as always.

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