Airbourne

No Guts, No Glory

Written by: PP on 03/05/2010 05:28:56

Aussie rockers Airbourne rose into super stardom as a result of their excellent debut album "Runnin' Wild". It was an album full of rowdy riff rock, old school 70s / 80s rock'n'roll style, of course entirely ripped off from AC/DC without any shame, but damn those guys could play. The phrase 'rock out with your cock out' was coined to describe how bands like Airbourne handle their instruments on stage and on record, because no other saying would do justice to the amount of pure badass attitude every one of their riffs emits. When these are complemented by vocalist O'Keeffe's wailed screams identical to a certain Brian Johnston, no wonder there's a lot of people out there who love this band.

They've now reached their sophomore effort "No Guts, No Glory", and I don't think it should come as a surprise to anyone that it's pretty much "Runnin' Wild" - the sequel. The band continues to clone the classic AC/DC sound almost note-by-note, only varying in the dozens upon dozens of solos scattered across, well, every song. No ballads here, just hard-hitting, riff-tastic, original rock'n'roll in the way that it was meant to be played: with balls.

However, this no-frills approach is what divides people into exactly two camps: those who love Airbourne to bits, and those who can't stand them for being such blatant, unoriginal rip offs of the most important band in rock'n'roll history. I played this record to one of my friends recently without telling him who it was, and after a couple of tracks he asked "which AC/DC album is this, I don't recognize the songs?". Which begs the question to be asked, If AC/DC would've never happened, what would Airbourne sound like? Would they even exist? Does it even matter? The truth is, you'll be in one of those camps mentioned earlier. If you happen to like Airbourne, then you must do so based on the merits of their excellent debut. In that light, "No Guts, No Glory" is decent, by no means bad, but a little too samey for my liking, mostly because "why should I listen to this instead of the debut or AC/DC" circulates in my mind. If on the other hand you belong to the haters, then this isn't the album that's gonna change your mind.

Download: No Way But The High Way, Steel Town
For the fans of: AC/DC, Big Ball
Listen: Myspace

Release date 08.03.2010
Roadrunner Records

Related Items | How we score?
Comments
comments powered by Disqus

Legal

© Copyright MMXXIV Rockfreaks.net.