AC/DC – Black Ice [HDtracks Hi-Res Remastered] (2020)

As part of AC/DC‘s remastered 2020 reissues in a Hi-Resolution Audio, here’s “Black Ice“. For eight long years they’d been silent. Then, seemingly out of the blue, AC/DC rediscovered their mojo with ”Black Ice” and became bigger than ever.
It had a higher strike rate than any AC/DC album since For Those About To Rock… in 1981. It proved to be their most successful record since then too.
Released on October 20 2008, it rocketed to No. 1 in 29 countries and had shipped six million copies by the end of that year.

Indeed, AC/DC were a band on ice. Eight years had passed since 2000’s ‘Stiff Upper Lip’ album, and five since their last performance at a SARS benefit concert in Toronto. Sony worked the back catalogue gamely enough, keeping the big hits and the schoolboy iconography in the public consciousness, but creatively speaking, there was an eerie silence from the world’s loudest band.

Even worse, filling the void during the wilderness years were malignant whispers from that scurrilous tool of modern witchcraft, the internet. Cliff Williams had taken a career-threatening cut to the hand (true). Angus had a blues solo project on the go (false). Etc.
In reality, the Youngs had been knocking about material throughout the decade, with both determined to have “all the goods” before they hit the studio.

For the first time since the early days in Australia, the Youngs were also prepared to cede a little creative ground. It was telling that when AC/DC began recording at the Warehouse Studio in Vancouver, they were accompanied by Brendan O’Brien, a new producer who was openly pushing the band to ditch the latter-day blues vibe and reinstate the melodic rock‑radio hooks.

Recorded and mixed in a head-spinning two months, these 15 songs represented AC/DC’s best material since 1981’s For Those About To Rock. Though hardly a reinvention of the wheel, from the guttersnipe chants of ‘Rock N Roll Train’ to the glam-tinged ‘Anything Goes’ and the meaty groove of ‘War Machine’, this was the sound of a restored line-up playing ferocious and fist-tight.

There were some surprisingly astute lyrics, too, from ‘Money Made’’s beating-back of the corporate tentacles (Angus: “The focus seems to be: how do we get money out of this?”), to ‘War Machine’’s musings on the treatment of soldiers through history (although with four songs that had the word ‘rock’ in the title it was never too cerebral).
Officially, only the Youngs were credited for the lyrics (and music), though Johnson would admit to giving the drafts a “kick up the ass”, and coming up with the memorably filthy couplet to Big Jack (‘Big Jack, Big Jack, Santa ain’t the only one who’s got a full sack!’). “I’m very proud of that,” he said. “It’s disgusting, but that’s what I’m all about, folks.”

Now they just needed the obligatory dangerous-sounding album title.
“I remember when I was a boy and I had me motorcycle,” explained Johnson. “And on the radio in the morning it said: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, today the weather is very cold outside. Please be careful of black ice on the roads.’ Black ice was dangerous and it couldn’t be seen. That was the whole thing about it – it was this ice that you couldn’t see that could fucking kill you.”

”Black Ice” it was. And so, in October 2008, AC/DC’s 14th international album duly went forth to top the charts in 29 countries and sell eight million copies. Not bad for a record that at the time was only issued physically, with Walmart given exclusive distribution rights across North America.
“We’re the only band left in the world now that hasn’t signed to iTunes,” Johnson said at the time. “We want people to buy a record, a physical thing, not a number on a fucking download, which is what it’s turning into.”
But even AC/DC would eventually relent, and they released their catalogue to iTunes some four years later, in November 2012.

But the commercial response left no doubt: the world needed ”Black Ice”. More to the point, AC/DC needed it too.
After several barren years, this album thawed the band out, planted their flag in the post-millennium, and minted several new songs that you genuinely hoped would be chalked on the set-list when you saw them live.
And yes, this remaster improved some things, more defined cymbals and such.
HIGHLY Recommended

01 – Rock N Roll Train
02 – Skies on Fire
03 – Big Jack
04 – Anything Goes
05 – War Machine
06 – Smash N Grab
07 – Spoilin’ for a Fight
08 – Wheels
09 – Decibel
10 – Stormy May Day
11 – She Likes Rock N Roll
12 – Money Made
13 – Rock N Roll Dream
14 – Rocking All the Way
15 – Black Ice

Brian Johnson – lead vocals
Phil Rudd – drums, percussion
Cliff Williams – bass guitar, backing vocals
Angus Young – lead guitar
Malcolm Young – rhythm guitar, backing vocals

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www.highresaudio.com/en/album/view/mtofuy/ac-dc-black-ice-remastered