This is the band I heard with Simon Wright at the Cherry Bar in ACDC Lane in Melbourne 2018. This clip is from a Sydney show a few weeks earlier.
Meanstreak We open with a nice harsh sounding guitar in the right channel, and a funky kind of riff guitar on the left. As the vocals come in both guitars move into this funky kind of riff. We have a solid rock beat. We get a sort of arena rock pre chorus, and then the chorus gets sund over the intro arrangement. At this point we move to Angus ripping out some lead, and he gets a good deal of space to do that. We then move into the funky dual riff and the verse. It sounds like the band are trying something a bit new here, and certainly kudos for that .... This one could grow on me with a few listens .... I like the verse arrangement, it has a cool feel, and my only contention, that as I say, may be cleared up with a few more listens is the pre-chorus and chorus transition, I'm also not sure about the rave up ending.... it doesn't seem to suit the style of the song. So on a first ever listen I really like sections of this song, but I'm not sure if it all fits together as a song or not ... I certainly don't dislike it though.
Go Zone We open with a descending lead line, and for a slight second I have a Radar Love intro flashback, but it doesn't end up going that way... it was just a brief hint. We move into some pounding guitar and drums. The chorus is again accented by backing vocals that again seem to be aiming at the arena rock feel. We get some nice rhythm accents that give the second verse a bit of a mix up, and change of feel. It seems to have been written to get an audience to chant Go Zone at a concert. We get a little breakdown type section that leads into Angus have another lead break. This is ok, but it seems to be trying to be a particular type of song, and I am unsure at this stage if it succeeds or not. Again it is my first hearing of this track, and it is ok, but doesn't make me feel like I missed out on anything.
Go Zone was on the B-side of Heatseeker so it's a track I heard before I got the album. It's just naff.
Go Zone is the first song on this album that doesn't really go anywhere for me, after three GREAT songs.
Preferred this to Heatseeker when the single was released. Love Brian’s filthy delivery and the buzz saw guitars. Terrific groove. The Rudd would have killed on this.
I came in between this album and The Razors Edge. At the time it didn't get much love from the die hards that I knew at the time. I listened to it today, plus the outtakes, for the first time in years and it's better than I remember it being although I can see why it's not really a memorable album. A couple of the outtakes (Borrowed Time & Down on the Borderline) outshine several tracks that did make the cut. Like Fly on the Wall, I'd be intrigued to hear whether a remix would improve this as I don't particularly like the production.
Kissin' Dynamite We get a somewhat delicate start that slowly rises in intensity, and then with Brian's cue we punch in. Then we move into the Acdc groove. This is a pretty decent song in the Acdc form. It doesn't feel outstanding, but it is pretty good
Nick Of Time We open again with a somewhat gentle feel and again slide up into Acdc mode. It is a really nice intro. Then we move into the Acdc groove with a staccato chord sequence. The vocals are a kind of rapid fire delivery and work pretty well. Pretty good track.
This would have been fantastic with superior production. Hamstrung the worst by this issue. Great delivery by Brian.
Damn, I just found this thread and I'm wayyy too late now. So no new information or interesting details on this post, I just wanted to crash the party. Anyway, I've been revisiting the mid to late 80's AC/DC albums lately, as they were the ones I grew up with. Fly on the Wall was the first I heard, back in 1989, I think. Back then the overly reverbed drums weren't anything uncommon, or at least I didn't notice anything being wrong. I enjoyed every song and still do. Next one I got was Blow up Your Video. A nice one too, but more filler. Which means that I could remember the whole FOTW album from start to finish, but BUYV wouldn't stick to my head that good. The third one was Flick of the Switch, which I think is the best one from the 80's. With Back in Black there were a few new elements to their music. I feel the Bon Scott era was basically a rock'n'roll band, and Johnson era had some hard/heavy rock and AOR touch added. I mean there wouldn't be songs like You Shook Me All Night Long back in the 80's. So as I listened to FOTW now it reminded me a lot of Powerage. It was more like the 70's rock'n'roll thing, more fun and loose than BiB, which I find arranged and produced quite "tight". Good as it is, but I prefer FOTS. FOTW has some of the both worlds. It's fun and rough (a lot can be said about Simon Wright's drumming, but the back cover image of him smoking a cigarette while playing drums is one of the coolest things I've ever seen), but has some AOR'ish touch in a few choruses. The mix on FOTW is not a total disaster. They didn't go Eliminator (or Afterburner) on this one, but I agree the rhythm guitars are a bit thin and the bass is too quiet (turn it up and you hear Cliff Williams groove, which makes the beat sound less stiff). Blow Up Your Video, well... It has the rough rock'n'roll edge on a few moments, like the yelled beat countings on a few songs. Then again, the production is more "tight" like on BiB but with lesser song quality.
One of the better songs on "Blow up youre video" imho. Not an album i have spent too much time with though, even though it might have been the logical step when i first got into AC/DC with "The Razors Edge" album release. Instead i went straight to "Back in Black" and "For those about to rock..." before going through all the Bon albums (and stayed with the Bon era albums)
This was an immediate favourite track and an absolute ripper live. As with most of the album, which I think is probably George’s influence, nicely structured. Lyrically strong. And as usual affected by the almost transparent mix/production.
Apologies guys. At the moment I am just too busy to do this justice. If nobody can jump in and lead us along, I will put stuff up when I am able Cheers Mark
Some Sin For Nuthin' This is a grinding rock song. The opening riff is reminiscent of something not quite coming to mind at the moment, and then we drop into a steady grinding groove. The chorus thickens up a bit, but stays pretty straight on the beat. I like the rhythmic delivery of the vocal mixes up nicely. The chorus lyrics and song title kind of straddle the line between clever and stupid, and depending on where you are on any given day, may fall one side or the other. I have read a few comments about the production being bad .... I actually am not really sure I hear that. This is a pretty solid sounding track, it just isn't really in the upper echelon as far as Acdc songs go. Even a nicely spaced Angus lead, with a nice repeat style at the beginning that opens up nicely and moves into a nice little part of it's own accord, doesn't really rescue this song for me. The guitars sound good, the vocal sounds pretty solid, the drums sound fine, I just don't think it is a great song... but it is the first time I have heard it.
Ruff Stuff This opens up with Brian and a nice little guitar riff. It kind of sounds like the band are trying to recapture their Bon era style to some degree at the start. The chorus is more in line with the more modern approach. I gotta say, I don't find the lyrics very inspired of inspiring lol We get a nice Angus interlude that from my perspective is again trying to rescue the song to some degree. I think the groove and structure here works a lot better though. I also like the staggered section towards the end, as it works to try and give the song some more musical substance. Sadly this song kind of falls a bit flat for me, in spite of being better musically than the previous track.
Two's Up I like the intro here, it works really well and the somewhat melancholy tone works well for me. We move into a staccato rhythm guitar, and then we move into a nice riffy guitar section. Then we move into the verse and the chord structure here is really good. It has a nice punchy feel and also has a pretty nice melodic movement. I'm not sure if anyone here is familiar with the game "Two Up", a coin toss game with two coins from Australia, but the song uses a lot of gambling type metaphors, although it seems to be clearly not about gambling lol .... The chorus works pretty well musically and I think the feel here is pretty good also. Lyrically we seem to be trying to recapture some of Bon's double entendre style, but there are few who seem able to do that as well as him. Again Angus gives us a very solid lead break, and again the melodic structure here is really pretty good. Again my favourite part of the song.
This Means War We open with a few solid chords and then we move into a kind of Angus boogie riff. The lyrical set up in the first verse seems to be directly related to the Easybeats I'll Make You Happy, and with Vanda and Young behind the desk, that actually makes it pretty cool lol. I like the breakdown that leads into the chorus. After the chorus we move into a much needed interlude, because as cool as the riff is, it feels like it dominates the song too much. The punctuated guitar parts at the end of the verses does its best to counteract the riffs dominance but it doesn't quite manage it. We move into Angus's section and it has some nice bits and then raves up into a wall of sound that does a pretty good job of trying to sound like a war. I think on this track we just have too much of the main riff, and the chorus repeats itself too much. This song really had a bit of potential but doesn't make it over the line for me.
As I had a bit of spare time, and I will be tied up tomorrow, I have posted the last four songs to hopefully give you guys something to talk about. I am not overly keen on any of the last four songs, but if others love them, that's cool, everybody has there own thing.
For me this album just falls short. It is very hard to really give it a very fair appraisal from such limited exposure though. I think about half the songs are pretty well constructed songs, that reach the bar, but there are a bunch of tracks that feel, or sound, kind of like ideas that didn't really come fully to fruition to me. For me the prime example would be the last track This Means War, we have a really cool riff, but it just takes up too much air time in the song, and by about halfway through the song I really need it to change up. Brian has written some really solid lyrics over the last few albums, but on here, he seems to be kind of caught short, and again the last track as an example, the chorus just repeats the same three words, and I guess this can often work, but in this instance it doesn't for me. So for me, this would have been a slightly disappointing album, and probably if I were ranking this would be my least favourite album by the band at this stage.... Yea, even the Aus High Voltage debut rises well above this one for me. Edit - on the positive side, the next album is really rather good. I have never owned it but my cousin used to play it a fair bit, and it sounded like a good album to me anyway. It will be an interesting one to revisit
One of the standout tracks on the record for me. Another strong lyric and committed vocal from Brian. Love the guitar work from Ang before the solo. Just a great song.
