Power Up

Power Up is one mighty curtain call, and listening to it feels a bit like playtime. [Jan 2021, p.80]

AC/DC do their thing, and it works.

While the rest of the Power Up is still the same medicine, it remains a grade of B or better. No ballads and no “rock” titled songs on these 12 shakers. Call it now –Power Up is the strongest AC/DC lp since 1990’s The Razors Edge: Well done boys.

They don't dwell upon the past, they barrel forward with a set of turbocharged blues and high-octane rock that doesn't merely sound good, it feels nourishing.

It's a solid second-tier AC/DC record. ... And the best individual songs are well worthy of the AC/DC marque. [Jan 2021, p.20]

Power Up is a reminder that this music has a power that belies its apparent simplicity (and here do not mistake this for being easy – go stand in a practice room and listen to how many drummers can’t do the ’DC beat properly). The context and tragic shadow from which it comes and the world into which it arrives makes its odes to freewheeling good times so very poignant.

The continuing appeal of AC/DC lies in the fact that this self-proclaimed bunch of “noisy little guys” consistently sound like they’re having good-hearted, OTT fun.

All dozen tracks are winners. [Dec 2020, p.80]

While far from a reinvention of the wheel, ‘Power Up’ is a joyous celebration of the unbridled heavy rock that has served them well for almost 50 years and, we can hope, a unifying cry for the future.

Power Up is as exultantly fierce, furious and – let’s be honest – belligerently dumb as anything in their catalogue. It is no-nonsense, headbanging, fist-waving, foot-stomping, raw-throated, hard-screaming, riff-ripping, pedal-to-the-metal maximum rock and roll all the way.

Through the unholy mess of its last decade, AC/DC has come out on the other end smelling like a black rose, and with a damned fine album in “Power Up,” which keeps the band’s inimitable form of metal magic intact with a few new wrinkles added to a familiar but still-thrilling bag of tricks.

Naturally, there are no real surprises here: Power Up sounds unapologetically like AC/DC, and Angus has likened the LP to a tribute to Malcolm the same way that Back in Black was a back-pew eulogy for Bon Scott.

It’s not a perfect album, though. The vocals effects on ‘Kick You When You’re Down’ are more than a little grating, while ‘No Man’s Land’ feels stodgy, at times even like a chore. That being said, there is quite simply no other group on the planet who can match AC/DC at their best.

While the album understandably contains some filler within its bottom third, POWER UP nonetheless falls securely within AC/DC's great B-level albums; just as solid and memorable as Let There Be Rock or For Those About to Rock (We Salute You).

Even at their blandest, and truthfully their dumbest, AC/DC make a compelling case why they're so good at this rock n' roll business. As it turns out, the secret is to stick to the formula until their dying day.

Fortunately, there is nothing noticeably sub-par about the tunes – or Johnson’s voice or Young’s brio on the guitar.

Fans of the band will have a blast for as long as this one lasts, feel proud for the old boys, and probably revisit it very rarely in the future.