This morning MetalSucks uber-Maniac Josh Kidd sent me this link to the website for AC/DC’s upcoming Backtracks box set. The music is all the usual bullshit you see on these box sets – studio rarities, live rarities, your mom’s rarities, whatever. Only really hardcore fans ever buy this shit and as much as I love AC/DC, I’m not a hardcore fan. So go here if you actually wanna see what’s on this thing, music-wise.

No, what captured my attention was the packaging, pictured above. Yes, it just looked like the umpteenth box set made to look like an amp, but check out the description:

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You’ve got big balls!

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So the new AC/DC single, “Rock N’ Roll Train,” has been unleashed upon the world, and, shocking though it may be, it sounds more or less like every other song AC/DC has released since Back in Black (I tend to feel like the Bon Scott years had some more variance in them; I’m sure someone out there disagrees).

For some reason, the fact that Angus Young has been recycling his own riffs for years has never really bothered me. I very much doubt I’ll purchase or even listen to AC/DC’s new album, Black Ice – but I’ll sure as fuck go see them in concert when they come to town. I tend to think of AC/DC as what Vince has referred to as a “legacy act” – a band that basically releases new music as an excuse to tour – which may be why I’m not as invested in a discussion of whether or not the new album is any good as I am when it comes to, say, Metallica (it may also help that the AC/DC hype machine isn’t as obnoxious, in terms of trying to tell the world that it’s shit doesn’t stink, as Metallica’s). Or maybe it’s just because rehashed AC/DC is still better than most other bands’ music, period.

In any case, here’s the new song… curious to see what y’all have to say about it…

Black Ice hits Wal-Marts, and only Wal-Marts, on October 20.

-AR