ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM, APRIL 16, 2010
By Steve Newton
In advance of the May 7 release of the superhero action sequel Iron Man 2 comes a collection that’s sure to please anyone who’s ever banged a head or tapped a toe to AC/DC’s irrepressible brand of boogie-blues raunch.
“This album is the hard loud companion to a movie about a Marvel Comics hero who takes care of business with heavy fists, steel will, and righteous fury,” writes esteemed Rolling Stone scribe David Fricke in the liner notes. “But these fifteen songs were created and detonated by real iron men, with superhuman-boogie powers, no-surrender backbone, and infinite rock & roll attitude.”
Yeah yeah—we already know all that. What’s interesting about Iron Man 2 is that it seems to have been put together by someone who’s familiar with the band beyond its huge hits. For example, the album opens brilliantly with “Shoot to Thrill”, arguably AC/DC’s best song ever, and also sports the rifftastic “Have a Drink on Me.” Both tunes are from the immensely popular 1980 Back in Black album, but better known, done-to-death BiB tracks like “Hells Bells” and “You Shook Me (All Night Long)” are nowhere to be seen. Nice.
The compilers of Iron Man 2 weren’t crazy enough to omit Back in Black‘s monumental title track, so it’s there along with such AC/DC standards as “T.N.T.”, “Let There Be Rock”, and “Highway to Hell”. And the marketing dept. made sure to include one track from the band’s latest chart-topper, 2008’s so-so Black Ice, as well as “Cold Hearted Man”, an outtake from 1978’s under-rated Powerage which first showed up on last year’s Backtracks collection. Did you know that the deluxe edition of that boxed set comes housed in an operating one-watt guitar amp? How cool is that? (About $231.37 [Can.] cool.)
Speaking of deluxe editions, Iron Man 2‘s features a DVD that includes the film’s “Shoot to Thrill” video as well as live versions of eight tracks recorded everywhere from Detroit’s Joe Louis Arena to a bullring in Madrid. And we all know how great the band is in concert.
There’s also a 38-page booket that includes—interspersed among promo shots of the iron dude himself—lots of archival photos of Bon Scott to help you remember just how awesome he was.