AC/DC — High Voltage (International Version) (review)

AC/DC — High Voltage (International Version) album cover Album · 1976 · Hard Rock Buy this album from MMA partners
5/5 ·
UMUR
"High Voltage" is the international debut full-length studio album by Australian hard rock/heavy rock act AC/DC. The album was released through Atlantic Records in April 1976. The band had released the two Australia only albums "High Voltage" from February 1975 and T.N.T." from December 1975, both of which proved successful for the band in their native country and got them noticed by Atlantic Records who signed them for a woldwide record deal in December 1975.

Although AC/DC´s Australian debut album is also titled "High Voltage", the two equal titled albums feature almost completely different tracklists. Only "She's Got Balls" and "Little Lover" from the Australian version are featured on the international version of "High Voltage". The remaining tracks on the album are culled from the band´s second Australian album T.N.T.". So all tracks featured on the 9 track, 44:37 minutes long album have been released before, but it´s doubtful many people outside Australia knew about AC/DC before the release of the international version of "High Voltage", so to those people this album was their first introduction to the band and their music...

...and AC/DC hit the ground running, as "High Voltage" is through and through a top notch hard rock release. Tracks like "It's A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock 'N' Roll)", "Live Wire", "High Voltage", T.N.T.", and "The Jack" are snarling heavy rockers filled to the brim with hard rocking blues based riffs and driving hard rocking rhythms. The icing on the cake are the blistering guitar solos by Angus Young and the raw nasal snarling vocals by Bon Scott. The latter delivers his hedonistic rock´n´roll lifestyle lyrics with great passion and conviction, and he makes you believe that this is the way he lives (which he actually did). The slightly more quirky rockers "Can I Sit Next to You Girl" and "She's Got Balls" bring some variation to the album as do the slow building blues of "The Jack".

Although the sound production is a little less heavy than on subsequent releases, it´s a near perfect sounding production job for the material featured on the album. The producer team of George Young (the older brother of guitarists Malcolm Young and Angus Young) and Harry Vanda have skillfully created a sound which makes the material shine. Upon conclusion "High Voltage" is not only a high quality (international) debut album by AC/DC it´s also often considered an iconic hard rock release and deservedly so. A 5 star (100%) rating is deserved.
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