Review: Airbourne

Airbourne. Like Metallica but not successful.
This heavy rock band, whose sound is cited on Wikipedia as “pub rock”, seem to have carefully constructed
themselves in Metallica’s image. The band’s logo is suspiciously Metallica-like, as is their appearance and music. It seems impossible to envisage how anyone but sweaty, paunchy, middle-aged men who wanted to be rock stars back in the 1980’s could ever listen to this music. I am presumably one of the few people on this planet who has had the aural misfortune to listen to Runnin’ Wild in its entirety. Every track sounds exactly the same, they are the same tone, usually in the same key, use the same monotonous riffs and all feature mindless and repetitive drum-bashing. The only marginally entertaining feature of this album are the lyrics, and by extension, the song titles. They veer from the unintentionally ironic: “Too Much, Too Young, Too Fast”, to the inappropriately abbreviated: “What’s Eatin’ You” to my favourite: “Cheap Wine and Cheaper Women”. If a member
of Airbourne wanted to pay for sex, I would imagine that he would find it impossible to get someone to sleep with him for less than the price of a cheap bottle of wine. This logic seems beyond Airbourne, who energetically scream out this phrase over and over again, lost in the dream of rock ‘n’ roll excess that died out circa 1986 and survives today solely in the form of Steve Coogan’s Saxondale box set.

After listening to the entire of Runnin’ Wild, the average listener might have had enough torture to content themselves.
But Airbourne are evidently concerned
that 34.40 minutes of unoriginal heavy metal may not be enough, so they include a special bonus DVD as well. Seeing as well as hearing is even worse. Stick to the CD if you must at all. This is the sort of music that they must use for torture in Guantanemo Bay. It is mindless,
outdated and utterly unoriginal. It is rare to describe an album as torturous, but if ever there was one, this is it. If you like this, there is something seriously wrong with you.

Catriona Gray