Album Review: Airbourne - Black Dog Barking

With colourful press release tag lines such as “crank it up, crack a beer and stick some rock'n'roll in your ear!”, Melbourne-via-Warrnambool hair metal four-piece Airbourne are under no illusions as to what their kind of rock is all about, and neither should their listeners be. This is straight-up ballsy, boozing, womanising pub rock and their third album, Black Dog Barking, delivers these goods and, sadly, that's about it.

It's hard not to but it shouldn't be written off immediately, nor entirely. While their '80s rock packaging makes it difficult to buy into any sort of authenticity, there's recompense in some aspects. It's unashamed and their passion is real, and so is the way they thrash those instruments about. From the opening “whoa ohs” and building guitar grunt of Ready To Rock there's really only one path this album can continue down. And that's fine. At least listening to this kind of shirts-free, white-chested rock through the comfortable safety of speakers shields one from the sweat and spit flying through the air. The riff in Hungry is belting, the Acca Dacca vocal screech in Fire Power will fire things up, and just when you think this formula will just circle around like a bogan in a paddock with a ute, Live It Up brings a fresh burst of vigour with a tantalising shimmering guitar intro – only to revert back to its predecessors' by-the-book rock structure with blazing guitar solos and unimaginative lyrics.

Seriously though, brothers Joel and Ryan O'Keefe, the keystone frontman and drummer respectively, have an audience offering unfaltering support for Airbourne; it's just a shame that they can't give them anything new.