AC/DC - Power Up

The Guardian 0

(Columbia)
The band’s first album in six years is a riotous hymn to unreconstructed rock, not to mention something of a medical miracle

In 1980, AC/DC released Back in Black, arguably the loudest wake ever committed to tape. On the one hand, the band were mourning their departed singer, Bon Scott; on the other, they were rebooting with a new frontman, Brian Johnson, whose Muttley chuckle became as much of an AC/DC trademark as the twin-guitar might of Angus and Malcolm Young. Back in Black remains one of the biggest-selling studio albums ever made.

And here they are again: back, metaphorically, in widow’s weeds, staging another resurrection in the wake of events that might have extinguished a punier outfit. Power Up, their 16th international album, is a particular celebration, given that these purveyors of electrical metaphor since 1975’s High Voltage looked like a spent force in 2017.

Related: The impossible return of AC/DC: 'You could feel the electricity in the air'