AC/DC-Powerage

Atlantic
1978

This is my favorite AC/DC album and has been for a long time. What, the one with virtually no songs that get played on the radio? Yes, that's right many of the songs here certainly are not known by casual fans. I think this the last of their real raw sounding albums and probably the peak of that sound. Many of the songs seem to begin slow and steady as the band settles into their groove and takes control. Then they guide us through when they are ready and it's a pretty enjoyable ride. Bon Scott seems absolutely relaxed because he is in command and he just takes his time building up the songs. It's not just the beginning of the tracks where the band control the pace, it's also at other times as well. The middle of "Sin City" comes to mind with the slow part where everything winds down to a crawl and all ears are on the direction that the band is leading us. I think this was a level that the band worked it's way up to. "High Voltage" had a number of just decent songs and parts where the band couldn't quite keep a whole song going at a top level. "Dirty deeds done dirt cheap" saw this problem subside quite a bit, but there was still a little problem with it. "Let there be rock" certainly had a high energy level, but lacked some variation within the songs. However, Powerage seems to have it all as does the follow-up "Highway to hell", but the band still seems a little hungrier to me on "Powerage". The overall sound of the album is one of a band throwing everything they have at the situation and it's pretty spectacular. Favorite songs here are "Riff raff", "Rock n' roll damnation", "Sin city', "What's next to the moon" and Kicked in the teeth"

***So what's your favorite AC/DC album?