High Voltage

Years of musical knowledge and understanding had passed between Angus and Malcolm Young by the time High Voltage announced the arrival of a new Australian take on rock. The brothers’ hours of performing and working together and obsessing over Chuck Berry and early heavy rock ’n’ roll insured that the songs on this album would be locked down and road-tested. With Bon Scott on board, this 1976 American release (technically a compilation of two Australian albums) reduced rock ’n’ roll down to rhythm, riffs and raunch. Scott sounds positively feral on “Rock ’n’ Roll Singer” while “T.N.T.” and “Live Wire” laid down the template for the band’s future: primal, monstrous riffs and sneering lyrics riddled with innuendo.