Band:	AC/DC
Album:	Back In Black
Style:	Hard rock, Blues rock
Release date:	July 1980
Guest review by:	stratorock666

01. Hells Bells
02. Shoot To Thrill
03. What Do You Do For Money Honey
04. Given The Dog A Bone
05. Let Me Put My Love Into You
06. Back In Black
07. You Shook Me All Night Long
08. Have A Drink On Me
09. Shake A Leg
10. Rock And Roll Ain't Noise Pollution

Now before I start this review I have to admit, on hearing this album for the first time I thought Brian Johnson's vocals were way to shrieky and high pitched in places and this almost immediately turned me off the album. However on second listen I realsied just how good a vocalist this guy was, how EFFECTIVE a vocalist he is and actually focused on the songs; boy was I blown away. I had listened to "perfect" (or as close to "perfect" as any album can really get) albums before, but even so, the quality and sheer power of this album stunned me, as I am sure it will continue to do for many more people out there.

Why is it good? Well, for starters, the guitars are tremendous; they are both heavy and commercial, catchy yet awe-inspiring, and this album includes some of hard-rock's all time greatest riffs (see hells bells, Let Me Put my Love into You and Rock and Roll Pollution for the absolute best). Then there is the vocals which I have come to sincerely admire. Brian Johnson's vocals here are everything a bluesy hard rock type of band should be: powerful and sleazy in equal measures. Seriously, some (most) of the vocal instances he contributes for the band in this album are spine-chilling in how utterly powerful and iconic they sound. And then there are the songs themselves, and it IS the songs that really make or break an album. The song quality here is magnificent: Every song just oozes quality, all sounding as if the band put everything they had into them to make them the catchiest, most iconic sounding bunch of hard rock tunes ever committed to the music world. Let Me Put My Love Into You has a fantastic laid back introductory riff, whilst others What Do You For Money and Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution have some of my most adored AC/DC choruses. So, I have listed what I thought of most of the aspects of the album, but how does it work as a whole? How does it jell together? Perfectly. The drums and the guitars and the bass and the vocals all contribute to make this a stunning album, all performances are stunning and couple that together with the momentous production and song quality, and do you know what you have? A near perfect hard-rock album.