UMUR "High Voltage" is the debut full-length studio album by Australian hard/heavy rock band AC/DC, released only in Australia, on the 17th February 1975 through Albert Productions. The album was recorded in November 1974 and produced by George Young and Harry Vanda. The former is the older brother of guitarists Malcolm Young and Angus Young. AC/DC´s first two albums were only released in Australia, but in 1976 they released their international debut album, which is also titled "High Voltage". The whole title thing is a bit confusing, but this Australian version of "High Voltage" features an almost completely different tracklist to the tracklist on the 1976 international version of "High Voltage". It´s actually only "She's Got Balls" and "Little Lover" which would also be featured on the international version of the album.

The remaining tracks from the 8 tracks, 39:51 minutes long album, were for many years only available on the original Australian version of "High Voltage". "Baby Please Don't Go", "Soul Stripper", "You Ain't Got a Hold On Me" and "Show Business" were later released on the 1984 "'74 Jailbreak" EP. "Stick Around" and "Love Song" weren´t available until 2009, when they were included on the "Backtracks" compilation.

"High Voltage" is quite the interesting release in AC/DC´s discography as it shows a very young band still working on establishing their own sound, and therefore it´s not the most stylistically consistent release. "Love Song" is even a ballad type track, which is a first (and last) in the band´s discography. There´s a slight glam rock influence on some tracks too, which is something the band got rid of very fast after this release, but overall "High Voltage" is still unmistakably the sound of AC/DC with Bon Scott´s raw snarling vocals in front, the steady hard rocking beat, the blues rock rhythm guitar riffs, and the energetic guitar solos. Malcolm Young even plays some solos in this release, which would also soon be a thing of the past as Angus Young would become to sole lead guitarist in AC/DC.

"High Voltage" features a well sounding production. It´s powerful and has the right organic qualities to it, to suits the material well. Upon conclusion "High Voltage" is a promising debut album by AC/DC, which immediately showed the world that the band had something to offer. The inconsistency of the material does mean that it´s hard to establish exactly what they had to offer, but the promise is certainly there. A 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.

siLLy puPPy Celebrating my 1000th review on MMA! I began this journey with my first review of AC/DC’s classic “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap,” the very first album i owned that exists on this site. I haven’t done another review from this band since and figured that hadda change. So why not start with another AC/DC classic, the very first album that was released twice. Once in Australia as the debut and once again internationally only with completely different tracks.

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Ugh. How incredibly confusing are the early years of AC/DC. The 60s British Invasion of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones was notorious for having dual identities of albums that were never supposed to be experienced on the other side of the pond but that was supposed to have died out by the 70s. However the record companies didn’t agree with that consensus and more pop oriented bands like The Sweet continued this trend into the 70s and the same happened to Australia’s AC/DC when they went international. The confusion in the case of AC/DC emerges from the fact that they released two albums respectively titled HIGH VOLTAGE and “TNT” in their native Australia, both in 1975. The problem emerges when considering the the band’s international debut which came out the following year in 1976 was ALSO titled HIGH VOLTAGE, however that edition was in reality a compilation album that contained tracks from both of the two Australian only releases.

AC/DC stood out from the crowd even from the beginning. While Australian, Angus and Malcolm Young were actually born and raised in Glasgow, Scotland but due to a massive freeze in 1963 ended up immigrating with their large family to the land Down Under. After going through the motions of warm up bands, the brothers (which originally also consisted of George) formed AC/DC in 1973 and went through many lineup changes before the classic band of Bon Scott joined in 74 in time to record their first album. At this stage, AC/DC was much more of a glam rock band although Angus Young already donned his signature school boy run amok look. What was lost on subsequent albums was the fact that Bon Scott too dressed in an alter ego but in his case a school girl complete with pig-tail adorned wig and a lovely dress to match!

The band released the Australian version of HIGH VOLTAGE early on in February 1975 and found almost instant success in their Sydney based homeland. This album stands out from the rest including the second album “TNT.” First of all, while Bon Scott was already at the helm on vocals and Angus and Malcom Young shared guitar and bass duties, the album includes different tracks that were recorded when George Young (bass, guitar, drums), Rob Bailey (bass), Tony Currenti (drums), Peter Clack (drums) and John Proud (drums) were still in the band, therefore creating a rather stilted debut album with a mishmash of performers on board. Despite the glam look and rather unstable lineup situation, AC/DC had pretty much developed their bad boy boogie-woogie swagger that implemented heavy blues rock riffing augmented by Bon Scott’s idiosyncratic vocal style.

While most fans in the world have most likely only heard the international version of HIGH VOLTAGE, since it’s by far the best known of the two, this homegrown first version still exists and has been reissued multiple times in Australia. The differences between the two include the fact that the international version was basically the second album “TNT” minus the Chuck Berry cover “School Days” and the track “Rocker” which would make it onto the international version of “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.” This Australian version only shares the two tracks “She’s Got Balls” and “Little Lover” with the international release. The rest of the tracks consist of the same hard bluesy rock that the following albums display only at this point, the band are a little less feisty and more emphasis is on the blues rather than the hard rock.

While the tracks are as catchy as ever, they don’t quite have the same ballsy bravado and would remain Australian artifacts for several decades before the majority of the tracks would finally make it onto the compilation release “74 Jailbreak.” This is probably the least essential of the Bon Scott era albums. Not only is it a bit harder to obtain since the YouTube videos are even blocked to most of the world but it is the least compelling of the band’s early albums as everything hadn’t quite gelled into place yet. The AC/DC that would climax into 1979’s “Highway To Hell” wouldn’t quite come into play until “TNT” hit the market at the end of 1975. Still through, if you are a hardcore AC/DC fan, this one is well worth the time.

vmagistr The electrified rhythm and blues that began to flow across the Atlantic to the British Isles in the late 1950s was pretty damn cool. It was "food" for many teenagers who, a few years later, would be at the birth of bands like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Who, but it also had the potential to appeal to kids whose chins had barely stopped dripping milk - like the two youngest offspring of Scotland's large Young family. Malcolm and Angus took their love of guitar heroes Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry with them to far-off Australia on the eve of the outbreak of Beatlemania. For the next decade, news of the newborn rock, which was growing up like a sponge and soaking up all the influences it encountered came to them only in spurts. They completely missed the psychedelic delirium, the courtship with jazz and classical or the arching art-rock architecture. What remained in their hearts was the blues, which they did not hesitate to shave to the raw marrow, following the example of the black masters.

Such is the music on AC/DC's debut album High Voltage, on which the brothers (with another sibling, George, as producer) set out to pursue their own rock vision. At its core is the blues, but it's closer to the rhythm-and-blues incisiveness and plainspokenness of black Delta outcasts than to British guitar lyricism. From the hard rock inventory, this music then takes the help of catchy riffs, which add juice and drive to the whole bluesy can. Most of the time, these are not complicated or pieces - AC/DC have been unique in their ability to build novel figures and melodies on a minimum of notes since their beginnings.

The individual tracks on their debut album oscillate between riff-heavy hard rock that even the likes of Free would be ashamed of (Stick Around), loaded stompers (She's Got Balls) and free-flowing treats with a proper bottom-heavy bottom end (Little Lover). The songs don't lack in the slightest for room for instrumental savagery, exemplified by the six-and-a-half-minute long Soul Stripper, which features some blistering solos. Moreover, the two guitarists hadn't quite worked out their roles at that point, so for a good half of the songs, the later "grey eminence" and rhythm player Malcolm shows that he is comfortable with the higher positions of his fingerboard too. Seriously, the Youngs were keeping a close eye on the genre's development in their native Britain - that is evidenced by the fact that they based their arrangement of the Baby, Please Don't Go by "King of the Nine Strings" Big Joe Williams largely on the version released by Irish rhythm-and-bluesmen Them in 1964.

On their debut, the band's hands were clearly not tied in the slightest by the desire to generate a hit. Probably the closest they come to that category is a piece with the instructively titled Love Song, which after a hopefully loaded intro goes into a shallow goo. AC/DC probably faltered here - fortunately only for once - and with a song that didn't do much for the single, they spoiled the ending of an otherwise pretty solid record in my eyes.

Frontman Bon Scott, the author of the vast majority of the lyrics, handled the specific spirit of the album in his own way - following the tried-and-true blues manner, he went about describing women ranging from "vessels full of sin" to incompetent toys designed to satisfy male desires. In some places, with a balanced degree of obscene double entendres, he hit the bull's-eye (She's Got Balls), in others (Love Song) the pathos is rather overwhelming. On the other hand, I much really appreciated the lyrics of the closing track Show Business, which takes on the woes of a musician being ripped off by promoters instead of the weaker sex - a blues evergreen, too, in fact.

All round, High Voltage is a pretty decent debut for me. There's still more in the blues template than the band may have needed to achieve worldwide success, and tempting the audience with pop sweetness won't be necessary in the future either. But the tools that the band will use to inject fresh blood into the veins of exhausted British hard rock within a year and a day are already present in elementary form. Seventies AC/DC are a solid ride with no downright weak spot for me, but in a peer comparison none of the Bon Scott albums fall below the level of the debut.