Album Review: Stiff Upper Lip

This is the sound of five guys and the brother of two of them laying down a wonderful rock and roll record. The sound, gritty and warm, on this album is extraordinary. It puts you right there in the room with boys or rather it puts the boys right there in the room with you. Every member of the band stands out throughout the record as the mix and production gives each their space to deliver stellar performances. On the title track Angus and Phil kick us off with a great bluesy lick and a counting hi hat as Brian comes in on a deeper register than usual before Mal and Cliff drop into the track Brian takes off ‘like a dog in a howl’ (maybe, who fucking cares?) and we get locked down tight into a groove from which you never want to escape. Angus blesses us with one of his most expressive solos in years, the ones where he tells you really what’s going on in the song through power of his SG and his fingers alone. As is so often the case the real stars of this song are Mal and his brothers in the world’s greatest rhythm section and in fact despite a record full of wailing leads from Angus and Brian giving every little thing to every single track this is true across the entire album. Stiff Upper Lip is conclusive proof that when it comes to laying down rock and roll grooves you can fight, fuck and dance to, AC/DC have no equals.

Not a track goes by where there isn’t a touch here and there of magic that brings a special flavour to the usual ingredients, maybe the presence of brother George in the control room has something to do with this. The placing of the backing vocals on Meltdown, the raw as hell crashing chords that bring that song to an end; THAT guitar tone on House Of Jazz which is worthy of a place on the next satellite we send into space to introduce us to passing aliens, not to mention the moment when the whole thing kicks off and you can feel the elemental presence of true rock and roll, there’s a reason why thunder and lightning play such a prominent role in AC/DC iconography it’s because they literally play up a storm. 

Hold Me Back is a lesson on how to build a song from a series of basic components into an engine that feels like could run for ever on the energy it generates for itself, the placement of the cymbal crashes, the arrival of the guttural backing vocals, every part adds to the building intensity of the track. Even the quicker tracks like Safe In New York City and the bonus track Cyberspace have grooves you still move too, you just move quicker, there’s really no other choice. And if you ever doubt the band still mean it watch the video for the first of those tracks; you’ll sweat just watching it. Can’t Stop Rock And Roll makes you believe that it’s an established fact. Satellite Blues opens up with a classic stop start Young brothers riff before bemoaning the ‘dumbed down news’, that’s right now you can now dance to social commentary. 

The most joyful song on here for me is Come and Get It, a filthy blues stomp that invents the concept of a double decker bed whilst making it perfectly clear that should you want it, you can get it right here. The album closes out with Give It Up the very last thing you want the boys to do, it is everything you could ever want from an AC/DC song, the Rudd opens it up with a shimmering beat that begs Cliff to get funky while Mal and Ang produce an archetypal interlocking riff and Brian invites us, no demands, that we ‘rip it up’ and ‘stick it out’. Yessir, fucking right I will. You have made yourself very very clear.