AIRBOURNE 'Airbourne'

AIRBOURNE
Airbourne
Spinefarm Records

Gargantuan riffs!
Blockbuster shit!
Homages to rock legends!

And the end result of what happens when you put esteemed producer Mutt Lange and BRYAN ADAMS in a studio together!
Australian rockers AIRBOURNE have never been ones to think small. But on their self-titled sixth studio album, they’ve outdone themselves in the most personable manner ever: Recording their latest disc in at Music Farm Studio in “the jungle” outside Byron Bay. The complex boasts the original Neve console from Alberts Studios, on which bands like AC/DC, ROSE TATTOO and THE ANGELS recorded their landmark early albums. It’s also home to Malcolm Young’s eight-track Neve, which too was recruited for the sessions. There the four-piece battled venomous snakes, deadly spiders, near cyclonic storms and the foibles of vintage analogue equipment (the band insisted on recording to tape) in their quest to create what vocalist-guitarist Joel O’Keeffe says is “the best record we’ve ever made”. (Some additional recording also took place at Melbourne’s Hothouse Studios.) Credit goes to the powerhouse production team of Brian Howes (who produced 2013’s Black Dog Barking) and engineer Mike Fraser (who worked on 2016’s Breakin’ Outta Hell and 2010’s No Guts. No Glory.)

For an indication of AIRBOURNE’s painstaking attention to detail – Ryan’s drums alone took three months to record – Joel estimates that when you add up all the time spent writing and recording the album, each minute of music equates roughly to a month’s work. Their demos sounded so good that legendary producer Mutt Lange (DEF LEPPARD, AC/DC) and multi-platinum superstar BRYAN ADAMS thought they were the finished product when they were sent “Here She Comes” and “Who Put the Rhythm In You” for their co-writing input. “We wanted to send our best stuff over and see what happens when AIRBOURNE kind of gets in a room with Mutt Lange and BRYAN ADAMS,” says Joel. “The answer was big, bombastic rock.”

Of course it was. Hell, that would have been a fitting title for the record. Instead, the band opted simply for a self-titled effort. AIRBOURNE, after all, is already a name that’s synonymous with bombastic, beer-soaked, dangerous, sexy rock’n’roll. “This record distils everything we stand for into one album,” explains Ryan of the title. “It’s the best album that we could possibly make.”

Lyrically, Joel is in typically lascivious form, whether singing of a woman called Candy Rose in the sleazy, raucous “Kid In A Candy Store” (one of several co-writes with former JOHNNY CRASH frontman Vick Wright) or the “lady boss” in the bawdy “Xmas Bonus” who’s so damned good she “makes Santa come twice”. “Here She Comes”, an arena-shaking anthem you’d expect of co-writers like Mutt Lange and BRYAN ADAMS, and probably even THE ANGELS for that matter, was inspired not only by a woman with “eyes on fire” who “wants to play”, but by the giant tropical storm that rained down on Music Farm Studio during the recording, plunging it into darkness save for the spikes of lightning illuminating the sky.

The driving “Alive After Death” and “Send Me To Rock’N’Roll Heaven” pay tribute to the band’s fallen idols, the latter referencing Lemmy, THE ANGELS’ Doc Neeson, John Bonham, Bon Scott, Little Richard and more (“send me to rock’n’roll heaven, I know they’ve got one hell of a band”). Joel wrote the lyrics to the barnstorming “Alive After Death” one night on the tour bus, reflecting on how these legends’ music makes them immortal (“When you speak my name you give me back my tongue, when you sing my songs you give me back my lungs, you give me life beyond the grave”).

Elsewhere there are tales from the road (“Bogota”), songs of defiance and never giving in (“Last Man Standing”, “Hell’s Got No Vacancy”, “Gutsy”) and, obviously, more sex (“Sky High”). It’s all presented in a meticulously crafted package mixed by Zakk Cervini (BMTH, ARCHITECTS) that captures the passion, fire and sweat-soaked danger of a band at the peak of their powers, complete with drums that sound like canons and guitars that cut like buzzsaws. 

All that’s left now is for AIRBOURNE to return to the stage (particularly a Canadian stage for which they’re about 15 years overdue), safe in the knowledge they’ll be bringing with them the best album they’ve made since forming in the Victorian town of Warrnambool in 2003. “It’s a rocket that we’ve been building and building, and we’ve filled it with this fuel and we’re ready to light it up and let it go,” says Joel. “We’re putting our whole selves out there with this thing. Everything we are as a band, our heart and soul, is in this record.”

It’s definitely a long-awaited album that will ensure that AIRBOURNE’s name will remain prominent amongst their peers. 

55.0 Out Of 5.0

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