There are certain things in life you can rely on. The sun will rise in the east, politicians will lie to you, beer tastes better when there’s a loud guitar involved, and Airbourne will never, ever make a jazz record. And thank fuck for that. Twenty-plus years after four lads from Warrnambool decided that rock and roll didn’t need reinventing, just playing louder, faster and with considerably more alcohol, Airbourne arrive at album number six with the most wonderfully uncomplicated statement they could possibly make. I saw them by chance in Warrnambool in those early days, stranded on a trip down the Coast Road. I loved it at the time, and love it even more that these guys haven’t changed, they’ve just grown… louder.
The new album is simply titled Airbourne. And actually, that title makes perfect sense, because this might just be the purest distillation yet of everything that makes this band so bloody enjoyable. Joel O’Keeffe calls it “blockbuster shit.” Ryan O’Keeffe talks about making “the oracle.” There’s talk of huge budgets, months spent getting drums right, analogue tape, vintage Neve desks and even a little assistance from Mutt Lange and Bryan Adams. Normally when a band starts talking like that you worry they’ve disappeared so far up their own artistic ambitions that they’ve forgotten why anyone liked them in the first place. Airbourne, thankfully, have just used all that time and money to make Airbourne sound even more like Airbourne… but this time turned up to 11…
‘Gutsy’ kicks the doors off immediately and is exactly the sort of opening statement you want. There’s no gentle introduction, no atmospheric scene-setting and absolutely no suggestion that anyone involved has discovered a synthesiser, let alone a computer. Instead it’s fists-up, chest-out Australian rock and roll with a chorus designed to be shouted back at the band by several thousand people holding plastic cups of beer. If the object was to announce that Airbourne are back, job done.
Then comes ‘Alive After Death (Last Plane Out)’, and already you sense there’s a little more substance underneath all the sweat and distortion this time. Inspired by the immortality of those rock and roll heroes who live on through the songs they left behind, it has all the physical force you expect from Airbourne but also a genuine emotional pulse. The idea that singing someone’s songs gives them breath again is a rather beautiful one hiding inside a song that could probably demolish a small building.
‘Here She Comes’ is where things get seriously enormous. Co-written with Mutt Lange and Bryan Adams, it has exactly the pedigree you’d imagine: massive hooks, beautifully constructed dynamics and a chorus that appears to have been engineered specifically for festival fields. There’s still plenty of dirt under its fingernails, though. Airbourne haven’t suddenly become polished corporate rockers; they’ve simply built themselves a bigger cannon.
And then we get filthy. ‘Kid In A Candy Store’ introduces Candy Rose and finds Joel O’Keeffe in familiar territory. It’s sleazy, swaggering, knowingly ridiculous and enormous fun. This is rock and roll with its trousers halfway down before it has even introduced itself. Former Johnny Crash frontman Vick Wright gets a co-write, and there’s an old-school Sunset Strip looseness running through it that suits Airbourne perfectly.
‘Sky High’ keeps the libido firmly in the driving seat. Again, nobody is going to mistake this for Leonard Cohen, but judging Airbourne on lyrical sophistication rather misses the point. This stuff is about movement, volume and that wonderful moment when a riff hits and your brain momentarily stops worrying about mortgages, deadlines and the general state of civilisation.
The first real curveball – if an Airbourne record can actually have such a thing – is ‘Who Put The Rhythm In You’. Another song touched by the Lange/Adams writing connection, it carries a slightly different swing and proves that within the apparently narrow confines of no-nonsense rock and roll there’s still plenty of room to move. It’s ridiculously infectious, and one of those tracks whose title alone sounds like it should already be followed by several thousand voices.
Then there’s ‘Christmas Bonus’, or ‘Xmas Bonus’ as it has also been referred to, which might be the least likely song ever to trouble Michael Bublé’s festive monopoly. The “lady boss” apparently “makes Santa come twice,” which should tell you everything required before pressing play. Subtle? Absolutely not. Funny? Certainly. Likely to become an annual Rockpit Christmas staple? I fear so.
‘Last Man Standing’ gets things back into battle mode. Defiance has always been central to Airbourne – the idea that whatever the world throws at you, you turn the amp up and keep going – and this is that philosophy condensed into a song. Big riff, bigger chorus, no surrender. You can practically see the fists rising before the track finishes.
‘Rock N Roll Ya’ might have a title that could only have come from Airbourne, but there’s something wonderfully reassuring about that. By this point in their career they know precisely who they are. They aren’t chasing whatever Spotify’s algorithm thinks rock should sound like in 2026. This is music made by people who still believe an electric guitar plugged into an obscenely loud amplifier is one of humanity’s better inventions. I’m inclined to agree.
‘Bogotá’ takes us back onto the road. Airbourne have spent a sizeable chunk of their adult lives travelling from one stage to another, and songs like this feel lived rather than imagined. It carries that restless, slightly unhinged energy that comes from years of airports, buses, backstage rooms and waking up occasionally unsure which country you’re in. It also gives the album a welcome change of scenery as we head towards the final stretch.
‘Hell’s Got No Vacancy’ is another magnificent Airbourne title and another exercise in sheer bloody-minded survival. If Hell is full, you suspect these blokes would simply set up outside, plug in and annoy the neighbours. It’s hard, fast and gloriously belligerent, with the guitars cutting through exactly as promised and Ryan’s drums sounding less like percussion than controlled demolition.
And finally we arrive at ‘Send Me To Rock N Roll Heaven’. It’s the perfect closer. Lemmy. Bon Scott. John Bonham. Doc Neeson. Little Richard. The names and ghosts of rock and roll run through it, but rather than becoming maudlin, Airbourne celebrate them in the only language that really makes sense here: volume. The idea of arriving in some mythical rock and roll afterlife and discovering that the greatest band imaginable is already playing is hardly new, but in Airbourne’s hands it feels heartfelt rather than clichéd.
And when the last chord disappears, you understand why they called the record Airbourne. Because what else could it be? There will inevitably be someone who complains that Airbourne haven’t reinvented themselves. They haven’t suddenly incorporated trip-hop, written a 17-minute prog epic or made an introspective acoustic record about the fragility of existence. Well thank God for that. We have enough bands desperately trying to become something they’re not, chasing relevancy in a mainstream world that cares for nothing but hype. Airbourne know exactly what they are.
What has changed here is scale. Brian Howes and Mike Fraser help capture a band that sounds positively enormous, while Zakk Cervini’s mix gives everything enough clarity to breathe without sanding away the danger. The guitars bite, the bass has weight and those painstakingly recorded drums hit like artillery. Recording through the old Alberts Neve console – the same lineage of equipment associated with AC/DC, Rose Tattoo and The Angels – isn’t just a nice piece of Australian rock mythology either. You can hear the band’s determination to make something physical, warm and alive.
That’s ultimately what Airbourne is very much Alive and dangerously, ridiculously, unapologetically alive at that. Six albums in, Airbourne haven’t made the record that changes what Airbourne mean rather they’ve made the record that explains exactly what Airbourne means. For the uninitiated that might just contain some or all of the following: Beer. Sweat. Sex. Volume. Riffs. Fallen heroes. Bad decisions. Big choruses. Guitars that sound like chainsaws and drums that could restart your heart from fifty metres away.
Airbourne understands what so many bands fail to: that sometimes rock and roll really doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that.
9/10