"Black Ice" is coming

[charlemagne]

So AC/DC took their sweet time, but tomorrow "Black Ice" is finally coming, my copy has just been shipped by Amazon.

I didn't hear one note from the new album yet and since I don't read any music magazines anymore, I'm prepared for everything. It might rock my pants off or it might be as forgettable as "Stiff Upper Lip".

Which one will it be/is it for you?

[TithonusSyndrome]

It might rock my pants off or it might be as forgettable as "Stiff Upper Lip".

Uh, isn't the running joke among their fanbase that all of their albums are the exact same and that's how they like it? How can any one album be better than another if that's the case?

[charlemagne]

Uh, isn't the running joke among their fanbase that all of their albums are the exact same and that's how they like it? How can any one album be better than another if that's the case?

Uhm well, they didn't change their basic formula since 1980's "Back in black", yes, but you can still write good or bad songs within the same style, can't you?

And besides that, most bands don't change their soundwriting radically with every album. So yeah, AC/DC are right up there next to Motörhead in keeping their sound like what people are used to, but it's really not like they've only been changing the lyrics to the exact same 10 songs for the last 30 years.

[tim31]

Interesting story: after the free concert to film a video for 'Rock N' Roll Train', a bunch of fans went home and did their best to record cover versions to circulate so that everyone knew what to expect(which they already should have: a 3-4 chord riff and a straight eight). Some radio stations got confused and were playing some of these covers- many of them very sloppily recorded- and claiming it was the real deal.

[charlemagne]

That's a nice story indeed.

So the album arrived, done one full listening, and yeah, it's good to great. "Decibel" sticks out as the best song right now. There's also some unusually sophisticated bass lines, especially in "She likes Rock N Roll".

But, of course, "Black Ice" fell victim to the ever moronic loudness war, too. It's not as bad as Metallica's "Death Magnetic", but some songs seriously hurt because they sound like you're wrecking your speakers. I'll never get the reasoning behind this, all it does is annoy the hell out of everyone, even people not caring for High Fidelity - try not normalising your MP3s and shuffling a bunch of older and newer AC/DC songs on your MP3 player, you'll be constantly correcting volume levels.

[YT300000]

Though it's not out for another two days, our local rock radio station played the whole album this morning, and I have to say, it's a definite step up from Stiff Upper Lip. The songs are easily as good as The Razor's Edge/Ballbreaker, and possibly as good as For Those About to Rock, though I'll need to hear it again in a better setting to say that for sure.

Stormy May Day is probably my favourite of all the songs, but I'm a sucker for a good slide riff. Angus is in top form, though Brian is starting to sound a little wheezy. And the compression is very annoying, yes. It's about at the limit of what can be piled on without the sound going completely to the dogs (Pirates of the Caribbean), but it would benefit so much from more dynamics...

[charlemagne]

If you only heard it over radio until now, the CD might actually sound a bit better still, since radio stations add their own level of compression (which makes sound compression on CDs just a bit more stupid). There's still a couple of songs that clip quite badly, but as I said, nowhere near as bad as "Death Magnetic", where "The day that never comes" might well be the worst case of clipping and distortion I ever encountered - they cranked compression up to the max during the quiet beginning of that song, so when it starts to get 'eavy it gets too bad for words to describe.

While "Black Ice" really is great, I still prefer "Ballbreaker" over it, but that might just be personal, since "Ballbreaker" was the first AC/DC album I was really into, been listening to it for weeks and weeks when it came out.

Also, yay for Friday release dates in Germany