Album Review: Airbourne - Airbourne

Nearly twenty years ago, Airbourne splashed onto the scene with their debut smash-hit Runnin’ Wild, and those who had been thirsting for something akin to the youthful abandon of AC/DC in their early days were summarily convinced that their ship had finally, at long last, come in.  Airbourne bore all the hallmarks of their elder countrymen, and it was more than just a sonic similarity - the band embodied all the brash and carefree je ne sais quoi of their forebears, in an appropriately loud volume.

Four albums followed in the next twelve years, some good and some not so good, but none could quite capture the edgy, mischievous, winking vitality of that memorable, classic debut.

Following six years without new material, the band released the single “Gutsy” in June of 2025, and showed real promise; while this new record is self-titled, “Gutsy” leads the album and is clearly the centerpiece around which the rest of the exercise is built.  As a single, “Gutsy” snaps with the kind of flair that Airbourne has built their career on - sure, this is rock music plain and simple, but it has the necessary hook and bite that makes a band stand out from the also-rans.

Not to make too many easy parallels to AC/DC, but there are similarities in career arc with Airbourne that make for good context.  Fifteen years after AC/DC debuted with High Voltage, they released The Razor’s Edge, which proved to be a comeback album given that the Australians' four previous efforts ranged from acceptable (For Those About to Rock We Salute You, which is a great song on a not-great record,) to lamentable (Flick of the Switch, Fly on the Wall, Blow Up Your Video.) 

Why mention this? We discussed above the four middling Airbourne albums between their debut and this eponymous effort.  But also because The Razor’s Edge gave the world “Thunderstruck,” with a guitar intro that would go down in the annals of rock lore…and a version of it can be heard towards the end of Airbourne’s “Here She Comes.”  AC/DC padded out their album with a sleazy Christmas song, “Mistress for Christmas,” and Airbourne, not to miss an opportunity, drops the even more cringy “Christmas Bonus” on the public.  And yet, for all that and perhaps because of it, this new Airbourne record doesn’t feel like the reinvention that AC/DC achieved.

(And of course, listen to the opening of the new “Last Man Standing” and try to argue it’s not an interpretation of “For Those About to Rock…”)

That doesn’t mean it’s all bad.  The album does end with a decent trio, beginning with the pretty good “Bogota,” the catchy and thumping “Hell’s Got No Vacancy” and the reasonably thoughtful and well-executed “Send Me to Rock N Roll Heaven.”  But there’s nothing revelatory here, other than a band who occasionally puts the right pieces together doing exactly that.

There was a time when Airbourne was criticized, rightly or wrongly, for sounding too much like AC/DC.  That really doesn’t apply anymore.  After nearly twenty years, it’s impossible to survive as simply a clone of some other band that came before.  The issue now is, after six albums, the most recent of which comes after a seven-year period of relative silence, Airbourne sounds just like Airbourne.