If you haven’t heard the AC/DC influence in Australian rockers Airbourne’s previous albums, then you need to get your ears checked. If you don’t mistake their newest record, Boneshaker, for AC/DC, then you need your metal head membership card revoked.
Is this a bad thing? No, no it’s not. The band states that they’re music is ‘no ballads, no bullshit,’ and Boneshaker is barely half an hour’s listen of high-speed and snappy dirty rock and roll. Kicking off the album is the title track and first single, ideal for the bands live set. Half the tracks on this record fall short of making the standard three-minute mark, with tracks ‘Sex to Go,’ ‘Blood in the Water,’ ‘She Gives me Hell,’ ‘Switchblade Angel,’ and ‘Rock and Roll for Life,’ making you feel like you’ve been dragged into a tornado, only to be spat out straight into another hurricane.
There is another side to this album that the O’Keeffe brothers, Harri Harrison, and Justin Streets have explored though. The usual sex, drugs, and rock and roll attitude is nowhere to be found on ‘Weapon of War,’ instead a sleazier, darker subject matter of soldier PTSD takes its place. With lyrics ‘business is boomin’/castin’ coffins for the dead/building tanks, bombs and guns/the arms race has just begun,’ and a haunting sombre spoken word breakdown ‘death is the meaning of life/keep your guns aimed high//shoot whatever they say/death is on his way.’
The boys in Airbourne have made ‘Boneshaker’ a ripper of an album, keeping their signature frantic energy while simultaneously paying homage to their influences, and they wear it well.
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