Short description
HIGH VOLTAGE was the first chance America had to glimpse the raw power of Australia's best hard rock outfit. From their earliest days, lead guitarist Angus Young, a spastic dwarf-like riff-monger who wore nothing but traditional schoolboy attire, was leading this band of hooligans with gleeful perversity and balls-out ambition. The group's intent is perfectly clear from the disc's opening power chords: to distil rock and mutate the blues down to its barest essentials in a pulverising whomp. Riding over the top of the battering rhythm section is the all-to-true sneer of vocalist Bon Scott, who brings sexist anthems to a previously unachieved high (or low, depending on your reference point).
With over-the-top stoppers about gonorrhoea ("The Jack"), HIGH VOLTAGE is not for the faint of heart. The single from this record, "T.N.T", got AC/DC into rock radio rotation and gave metal fans a template of the brand of molten lava the band would later weld into perfection. The formula for which the group would eventually become famous--songs based around three crunching power chords and the high pitched squeal of a man who sounds like he's just been unleashed from the reformatory--is firmly established here.
Review
Q - 3 Stars - Good - "...a stripped-down intimacy that suits no-frills rockers..."
Uncut - 4 stars out of 5 - "...A pleasure, as always..."
Mojo - "...It established their style of stripped-down, simple, riff-heavy, blues-and-boogie music and dirty-fun lyrics..."
Q (10/94, p.134) - 3 Stars - Good - "...a stripped-down intimacy that suits no-frills rockers..."
Mojo (12/00, p.84) - "...It established their style of stripped-down, simple, riff-heavy, blues-and-boogie music and dirty-fun lyrics..."
Uncut (9/03, p.123) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...A pleasure, as always..."