One major change that occurred in that five year period was the replacement on the drumstool. Again. For the previous album and following tour, Chris Slade had come in to replace Simon Wright, and his excellent drumming and unique style in the live environment made him a popular figure amongst fans. However, during the tour, former drummer Phil Rudd, who had begun to make contact with the band again after having been dismissed during the sessions for the album “Flick of the Switch” due to drug problems and tension with Malcolm Young. During this reconciliation he had mentioned that “should anything ever happen with the current drummer” that he would love to rejoin the band. By 1994, as demos were beginning to be made for their follow up album, the band rehired Rudd, and moved on Slade. Not something that Chris Slade himself took particularly well.
For the album, legendary heavy focused producer Rick Rubin was brought in to give the album his special touch. Rubin had a fan of the band for years and had always wanted to work with them. Their first effort together had been the single “Big Guns” for the soundtrack of the Arnold Schwarzenegger film “Last Action Hero”, which had topped charts around the world. For all appearances, surely a new album with these two entities just HAD to be a winner... didn’t it?...
I spoke on this subject just two episodes ago, but AC/DC albums more than any other band seem to be driven by the opening track, one that almost always released as the opening single prior to the album coming out. It is the one that sets the tone for the album and also the sales. Here on “Ballbreaker” it is “Hard as a Rock”, which settles into a rhythm that is familiar and comforting, exhibiting all of the elements that make the band what it is. That rhythm section is hammered into place, where it sits at the same tempo for the majority of the next 45 minutes, never straining itself and never losing a beat along the way. And throughout the album’s length, you can either see and hear each as being more or less an extension of the previous song and the next, or you can sift through and pick out the subtle differences between them all. The slower tempo of songs such as “Cover You in Oil” and “Boogie Man” can be a misleader, a misnomer. There sounds like there is a decision here to have this album sound more like the 1970’s presence of the band, trying to pull away from the sound the band utilised in the 1980’s and revisit their earlier work. Not so much in the style of the songs but in the sound. Those two songs have that slower, cooler feel about the music. In a similar way, "The Honey Roll" is as basic as it gets for AC/DC, the backbeat rumbles along for five and a half minutes, while Brian's vocals magnetise themselves over the top, except for the 45 seconds or so that Angus plays his basic and formularised solo. You could feed the basic AC/DC components into a computer, and it sometimes feels as though it would write this stuff for you. As has always been the case with this band, this could be seen as a positive or a negative. Truly, in this case, this song has no inspiration, and any kid with a guitar and a drum machine could have composed it, and yet is has the charms of most AC/DC songs.
There are a couple of songs that have a harder feel about them, a bit more energy in the guitars without betraying the tempo this album has been set in. “The Furor” - not as in the former leader of Germany – is arguably the best song on the album. The wonderful melody of the guitars and bass line is held together by Phil Rudd on drums as only he can, and the out of character lyrics from the Young brothers are expressed in Brian Johnson’s own inimitable way. This is very much a change up or AC/DC both lyrically and musically, and is a triumph in an age where these types of songs had supposedly been eradicated. Add to this "Burnin' Alive", which is still simple, but with an improved tempo and a great melody line throughout it gets your feet tapping more enthusiastically. The rise into Angus’s solo is a nice touch as well. So does the next song, which was the second single from the album, "Hail Caesar", which exhibits a similarity to their hit song “Big Guns” from the “Last Action Hero” soundtrack. It is the most recognisable track to that song on the album, which given its success is somewhat of a mystery “Hail Caesar” more or less failed to chart, so perhaps they weren’t far off the mark at all. In reality the song goes on a bit too long.
Into the back half of the album, and it feels as though either the ideas were running out or the band slipped back into ‘standard Accadacca mode’. "Love Bomb" is all the basic tenements of the band, the solid rhythm, Brian’s vocals espousing the sexually tinged lyrics and Angus providing the short break from this with a small flourish in the middle. "Caught With Your Pants Down" settles into formula music and lyrics again, just to show that it isn't something you can easily escape. The faster tempo and crack of energy in the tempo and vocals does reminds you of past glories in the early 1980’s. "Whiskey on the Rocks" remains in the bands preferred mid-tempo, and leads into the album-concluding title track "Ballbreaker", which at least gives off some energy before we wave goodbye.
“Ballbreaker” is a reasonable effort for a band in their third decade. Many years ago, when asked by a friend what I thought about the album, I wrote “I may well be proven wrong, but the final peak of this band's career may well have been their previous effort. I don't know what the future holds for them, but I can still find enough good stuff on this album to believe that they may have more left in the tank, if they can just push harder at the faster songs than they necessarily do here”. I think that is still a reasonable sentiment.
Although there was a five-year gap between the band’s previous album, “The Razors Edge”, and this one, it has been a period of two episodes of this podcast between the two albums - “The Razors Edge” is episode 128 for those that are interested. And as a result, I have spent a lot of time over the last week and a bit listening to both albums almost back-to-back, which has been an interesting experience when it comes to comparing the albums strengths and weaknesses.
When this was released, it was an album that I had conflicting thoughts over. For a start 1995 was a black hole year for me, so I didn’t purchase this album until the early months of 1996. The lead single was on the radio of course, and played often... but perhaps not as often as you would expect of AC/DC in Australia. The music world had changed of course, but AC/DC had not. What I got from those first two singles was that it sounded like AC/DC, but a little stripped bare of the energy you associated with the band. Was that the current day music climate? Was it Rick Rubin? Was it the band itself? I didn’t know, but to me it had a feeling that I get when I listen to the 80’s albums after “Back in Black”, that it was missing an ingredient or two. And, having listened to it next to “The Razors Edge” rather closely, the quality difference is stark. Some may argue it isn’t a fair comparison, but it was the band’s decision to have a five year gap between albums, and though they couldn’t have predicted the changing atmosphere in the music world during that time, half a decade is always a long time in the music business. When I did get the album, I found that it was fine, but I didn’t rank it alongside the previous album. It went away into the CD racks, came out again towards the end of 1996 when the band made their belated return to Australia – where I saw them for a third time from the front row of the Sydney Entertainment Centre – and has resided in the CD racks for most of the time since. It comes out occasionally, but as with all bands there are more likely albums to listen to of their discography than this one.
As I said, I have had this going for between one and two weeks, and it has been fun. For those that did listen to “The Razors Edge” episode, you probably won’t be surprised to find that I think most of the songs here equate with the second half of that album. They are good solid hard rock songs, in the style that AC/DC does so well. A couple are a little on the boring side, but overall they stick to the tried and trusted blueprint, which is good enough for most fans. For me it sits in the second half of their discography in terms of ranking, and given the excellence of most of their albums that isn’t a slur on this album at all. It isn’t as good as its predecessor, but it holds up well against everything that came after it.
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