Black Ice

Black Ice is a comeback record on which AC/DC, after a long gap of about eight years, dignified sounds thick riffs and Brian Johnson’s raised voice. Despite a volume of fifteen songs, the guitars of Angus and Malcolm Young keep their usual concise, sturdy design while carefully adding a different groove and blues shading to each song. From the overwhelming drive of the hit opener “Rock ’n’ Roll Train” to the weight of the title track “Black Ice,” the album stacks short, strong hooks one after another and, despite its length, never loses focus to the end. From the momentum of “Big Jack” and the weight of “War Machine” to the catchiness of “Anything Goes” and the grandeur of “Rock N Roll Dream,” the songs are astonishingly rich. Powerful, lively playing that shows no sign of the long gap fills the whole. Holding its unchanging style as firm will rather than stagnation, it again showed the world the band’s large scale. Proving that, even as veterans, their creative drive and playing have not dimmed at all, it is a dignified comeback record.