AC/DC — Black Ice

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AC/DC - Black Ice cover
3.43 | 54 ratings | 3 reviews
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Album · 2008

Filed under Hard Rock
By AC/DC

Tracklist

1. Rock 'N' Roll Train (4:21)
2. Skies On Fire (3:34)
3. Big Jack (3:57)
4. Anything Goes (3:22)
5. War Machine (3:09)
6. Smash 'N' Grab (4:06)
7. Spoilin' For A Fight (3:17)
8. Wheels (3:28)
9. Decibel (3:33)
10. Stormy May Day (3:10)
11. She Likes Rock 'N' Roll (3:52)
12. Money Made (4:15)
13. Rock 'N' Roll Dream (4:40)
14. Rocking All The Way (3:22)
15. Black Ice (3:25)

Total Time 55:37

Line-up/Musicians

- Brian Johnson / vocals
- Angus Young / guitar
- Malcolm Young / guitar, vocals
- Cliff Williams / bass, vocals
- Phil Rudd / drums

About this release

Released by Columbia, 17 October 2008.

Thanks to Time Signature, Pekka, umur, Lynx33 for the updates

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AC/DC BLACK ICE reviews

Specialists/collaborators reviews

UMUR
"Black Ice" is the 15th full-length studio album by Australian hard/heavy rock act AC/DC. The album was released through Columbia Records in October 2008. It´s AC/DC´s first album since "Stiff Upper Lip (2000)". The 8 years gap between albums was due to a label shift from Atlantic Records to Sony Music and then a shift within Sony Music from Epic Records to Columbia Records. In addition to all the label fuzz, bassist Cliff Williams suffered an injury to his hand in 2005, and spent 18 months unable to play. So while the band took a break between 2001 and 2003 before resuming band activities again, they didn´t spend 8 years doing nothing. The two Young brothers did however have a lot of time to write and tweak their new written tracks, and by the time AC/DC entered the studio in March 2008 with producer Brendan O'Brien, they were ready to rock.

Commercially "Black Ice" was a very big success and by December 2008 the album had sold around 6 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best selling AC/DC albums, along side classic albums by the band such as "Highway to Hell (1979)" and "Back in Black (1980)".

The album features the usual hard rocking and blues based heavy rock style with Brian Johnson´s rusty voice in front. The band genereally seem a bit more inspired than on the somewhat forgettable "Stiff Upper Lip (2000)", which is a nice surprise. But while there are several strong rockers on the album like "Rock 'n' Roll Train", "Skies on Fire", "Big Jack", "War Machine" and the closing title track, "Black Ice" unfortunately also features some of the same fatique that characterized it´s predecessor. The fact that the album features 15 tracks distributed over a 55:37 minutes of playing time (making "Black Ice" the longest running studio album by AC/DC up until then) doesn´t help either. "Black Ice" is simply too long and features too many filler tracks to be a truly excellent album. But less will do because overall it´s still a much stronger and more memorable album than "Stiff Upper Lip (2000)" and the strongest tracks on the album fully display why AC/DC are counted among the elite hard/heavy rock acts in the world.

The organic powerful sound production provides the music with just the right authenticity and punch. So while "Black Ice" isn´t exactly a revelation and to my ears not one of the better albums by AC/DC, it´s still a pretty great album deserving a 3.5 star (70%) rating.
Time Signature
Rock 'n' roll dream...

Genre: hard rock

It's been eight years since their last release, and, amazingly, AC/DC manage to capture the crisp sound. Compared to "Stiff Upper Lip", "Black Ice" is a much stronger album with some really solid riffing and rocking.

There are plenty of super catchy Young and Young style riffs - more than on "Stiff Upper Lip" - which constitute the driving force of tracks like "Big Jack", "Smash 'n' Grab", the aptly titled "Decibel", "She Likes Rock 'n' Roll" and the blues-based title track. "Stormy May Day" is interesting in that it has Angus Young doing some slide guitar, and "Anything Goes" almost has a Bryan Adams feel to it - which does not fit Brian Johnson's vocal style that well - but, hey, at least they tried.

"Black Ice" really is a great hard rock album, which I enjoy listening to - it also takes me back a bit to the Bon Scott era albums which are similar in sound. If you like hard rock and blues rock, you'll like "Black Ice".

Members reviews

vmagistr
Many many years ago, when I started earning money, which could buy something more than spare batteries for my mp3 player, I was very sorry that the tickets for the AC/DC concert in Prague were sold out in a moment and I didn't manage to get my own. I knew only a few songs from the band at that time, but I believed them to be rock masters of the stage. No way I knew their current album Black Ice then, I was listening to a best-of their (mostly) 70s hits. I didn't get to the aforementioned CD until a few years later - at one time, various sell-offs were just full of that in Czech Republic. Actually, it may have been my first contact with a complete album from the "Johnson" period, but the differentness compared to the Bon Scott tracks was quite a handicap, especially at first.

Years later, now that I can get to grips with the AC/DC discography, I gave Black Ice another chance. Instead of a CD with compressed sound, I use a vinyl-rip form, but my impressions haven't changed much even after all these years. In my opinion, the album is driven by the overblown opening quartet. I see Rock 'n' Roll Train, despite its stumbling riff, as a clear hit, the likes of which the band hasn't managed since Thunderstruck. I also enjoy the Big Jack chorus and the more laid-back Anything Goes a lot, and in the chopped kilts and sparkly guitar refrains of Skies on Fire I again hear echoes of a path the Young brothers ultimately didn't take. But it gets noticeably weaker from there - especially in some tracks, AC/DC's combination of mid-tempo and lack of catchy musical ideas created a boredom to death for me.

I can highlight rather small things: the bold "synth" sounding guitar line in Smash 'n' Grab, the interesting guitar-bass interplay in the verses of She Likes Rock 'n' Roll or the riffs in the closing title track Black Ice. Just when I feel a hint of an imaginative or at least catchy melody (Wheels), Johnson goes down a completely uninteresting path for me in the next bar, and the catchy rhythm of Rocking All the Way are killed by the melodic "blackout" in the chorus. Then, without exception, I completely dislike alle the here unnamed songs - if I might have enjoyed some of them before, I can't take anything away from them nowadays.

Round and round it seems to be a real bummer with the four songs I like from the album and can enjoy repeatedly. In the future, I'll probably have a lot of second thoughts about embarking on that hour-long anabasis again, and instead "make" a decent four-song EP out of Black Ice. All in all, it comes out to two stars, and I think I'm still pretty merciful.

Ratings only

  • karolcia
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  • powermetal2000
  • sepozzsla
  • Pekka
  • ElGordoPopochas
  • aglasshouse
  • Unitron
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  • CalumNickelback
  • SevDawg
  • Bosh66
  • Nightfly
  • Lynx33
  • oogie0
  • MetalMirror
  • yair010390
  • Paolini
  • Lampyridae94
  • IMPF2112
  • IMPF
  • Sheavy
  • spitf1r3
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  • jorgelog94
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  • snowman1980
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  • Bartje1979
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