Record Reviews

AC/DC

Album: “Rock or Bust” (Columbia Records)

Grade: B+

In 1980, AC/DC’s very existence was at stake: singer Bon Scott died just as the band was starting to get big. They used the uncertainty and grief to dig down deep, and the result was one of the greatest albums in rock history, “Back In Black.”

In 2014, AC/DC is once again in turmoil: founding rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young had to leave the band due to dementia, and drummer Phil Rudd recently saw charges that he hired a hit man to kill someone dropped, but still faces serious legal matters. And once again, the band has come up big, with “Rock or Bust.”

The album is based on lead guitarist Angus Young’s butt-shaking, foot-stomping guitar riffs, elegant in their simplicity and their ability to burn themselves into your brain. The title track, and the first single, “Play Ball,” are perfect examples of this.

“Miss Adventure” adds a “nah nah nah” chant to a bouncy blues beat in the same way that chants benefited their previous hit “Thunderstruck.” And “Emission Control” is one of the all-time great song title double entendres.

But the happiest surprise here is the re-emergence of Brian Johnson’s voice. During the ’90s and early 2000s, you could literally hear it crumble before your ears, seeming to get weaker with each new album. Whether it has re-energized during the time off since the band’s tour wrapped in 2010, or is just miked and processed better, it sounds strong and vibrant again — an essential element of the classic AC/DC sound.

—Wayne Parry, Associated Press

MAYA ANGELOU

Album: Caged Bird Songs (Smooch)

Grade: B

Maya Angelou is regarded as a poet, earth mother, and as Oprah’s mentor, judging from O’s autobiographical fiction. And Angelou had still another side: that of singer. Her handsome vocals were first heard on the 1957 album Miss Calypso, and she lent her voice to recordings by jazz flutist Herbie Mann, soul duo Ashford & Simpson, and socially conscious rapper Common, among others.

On the posthumously released Caged Bird Songs (produced by RoccStar and Shawn Rivera), a wise, warmly humorous album, Angelou’s cadences are refined to a clean hip-hop groove. Her language, whether prose, song, or poetry, is redolent in musicality and rhythm. Take the previously published “Life Doesn’t Frighten Me” on this album. Read it and you’ll feel its funky sway. On this wise, warmly humorous album, Angelou acts like any other MC: bragging here (“I’m the best that ever done it,” she snaps on “Pow Pow”), Auto-Tune there (“On Aging”), and turf-claiming (“Harlem Hopscotch”) throughout. Caged Bird Songs closes with the gospel-folk traditional “Pilgrim of Sorrow” and its aspirations toward heaven. It’s an elegant homage to Angelou’s grace in the face of God.

—A.D. Amorosi, Philadelphia Inquirer