77-High Decibels

Listenable
2012

Everyone has their influences and some are more obvious than others. Then on occasion you get a band who flat out just tries to copy a more established band. In more recent years this trend has become more commonplace. 77 have done just on their sophomore album as try emulate 70's AC/DC. That of course has been done by acts before as along with Black Sabbath, I would AC/DC are one of the two most copied hard rock/metal bands of all time. It's not just the simple riffs of Angus Young and the vocal stylings of Bon Scott that 77 try to copy, but even the tones and the production attempts to make this album sound as though it were recorded around oh, 1977 of course. They get pretty much no originality points for doing this. However I like Bon Scott era AC/DC and as far as that goes they do a far better job of copying it than do bands like Rhinobucket and Airbourne. They hit the pumping groove lead tracks like "Gimme a dollar", but what really impressed we was they sounded even better on slower tracks like "Let's beat it up" and "Since you've been gone". I think that last part shows that 77 have a good grip on what made early AC/DC so special. That is not just the riffs, but the attitude and the control and patience to really build the song up. Vocalist/rhythm guitarist Armand Valeta tries to be Bon Scott and he's decent singer, but not original because of course there was only one Bon Scott. Still this album is fine effort and better than anything the real AC/DC has done in a long time.