So… I’ve had the new Airbourne album “No Guts, No Glory” for two days now and listened to it three times. I shelled out an extra couple of quid to get the extended version with 5 extra tracks for £11.99. What’s it like?
First impression is – on the whole – no surprises. As reviewers in Metal Hammer, Kerrang, Classic Rock and even the Guardian have already mentioned, on most tracks it sounds like a ‘lost’ AC/DC album from the early 1980’s – especially “Blonde, Bad & Beautiful” and “No Way But the Hard Way”. Tick the box that says “lots of throat-shredding antipodean bravado about wine, women & song”. The fifth-form smutty innuendo is also present and (politically in)correct on tracks such as “Chewin’ the Fat” (which is so not about the joys of gossiping) and “Armed & Dangerous” (which is really not about a dangerous criminal).
However, there are some tracks which make this more varied than the Aussies’ debut album “Runnin’ Wild”. Certainly the speed-metal of “Raise the Flag” and “It Ain’t Over ‘Till It’s Over” must have raised an avuncular smile from a certain Mr Kilminster.
Meanwhile, the surprisingly lyrical “Bottom of the Well” shows that Joel O’Keefe can do a lot more than simply scream into a microphone and thrash his Gibson SG until it howls for mercy. It’s the least typical track on the album, but is so far my favourite. Don’t know if it will stay that way – after all, research has shown that we like a song most somewhere around the sixth or seventh time we hear it.
So, if you liked the debut album, or if you like classic hard rock in general and AC/DC in particular, then “No Guts, No Glory” is well worth the entrance fee.
"God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of the best shots."
-- Voltaire, Notebooks, vol. 2, "The Piccini Notebooks". (1750)
I want to give it 4 out of 5, which is pretty much what Kerrang, Classic Rock, etc give it. But.... I'd be even more positive if there were more tracks like my favourite song "Bottom of the Well" and slightly less of the macho larrikin posing on numbers like "Kicking it Old School", so averaging this with the Guardian's 3 stars, let's say 3.5.
I'm being picky. I am listening to the album a lot at the moment and enjoying it as well. I'd only ever give 5 stars to truly legendary albums, like Sgt. Pepper, Transformer or The Joshua Tree.
"God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of the best shots."
-- Voltaire, Notebooks, vol. 2, "The Piccini Notebooks". (1750)
I have it on good authority that it's because those Eastern European chix really dig geeks...? (irony) Oh..damn, it's just spambots. I miss Svetlana already..
