AIRBOURNE – AIRBOURNE (Album Review)
Updated: Sep 6
Album release date: September 4, 2026
Record label: Spinefarm Records
The Riff Doctor’s Score:
RRRR — 4/5
The Riff Doctor’s Diagnosis
Airbourne do not reinvent rock ’n’ roll on their self-titled sixth album. They simply remind us how exhilarating it can still be when played loudly, shamelessly and with enough electricity to light up an arena. Familiar influences remain, but Airbourne stopped being an AC/DC tribute act a long time ago. This is faster, fresher and unmistakably theirs: twelve tracks loaded with colossal riffs, filthy humour, fallen heroes and choruses built to be shouted with a beer held dangerously overhead.
The Full Review
At this stage, expecting Airbourne to undergo a dramatic reinvention would be like walking into a pub and ordering a pint of red wine. Technically possible, perhaps, but everyone involved would rather you didn’t.
Twenty-five years into their career, the Australians have called their sixth album simply Airbourne. It is an appropriate title for a record that does not attempt to redefine the band but instead concentrates everything they represent: loud guitars, pounding drums, indecent suggestions, heroic quantities of swagger and an almost religious faith in rock ’n’ roll.
Recorded using vintage equipment with strong connections to Australian greats including AC/DC, Rose Tattoo and The Angels, the album possesses the warmth and physicality of a record designed to be played loudly. Its production is bigger and more polished than before, yet the band’s rough edges remain reassuringly intact.
“Gutsy” provides exactly the opening the album needs. A brief guitar introduction offers the illusion of restraint before Airbourne come charging through the door. Joel O’Keeffe sounds characteristically ferocious, while the central message — courage as a way of life rather than an occasional choice — gives its enormous chorus something more substantial to carry. It is direct, defiant and destined for the live set.
“Alive After Death (Last Plane Out)” brings the first emotional shift. Inspired by the idea that departed musicians continue living whenever their names are spoken and their songs are played, it serves as a heartfelt tribute to Lemmy and the other giants whose influence continues to reverberate through rock. Airbourne deliver the sentiment without slowing down or becoming overly mournful; remembrance here comes with the amplifiers still roaring.
Co-written with Bryan Adams and Mutt Lange, “Here She Comes” adds a little arena-sized precision to the band’s usual attack. There is more than a passing echo of “You Shook Me All Night Long”, but it is filtered through Airbourne’s more frantic and electrically charged personality. Its dynamics, enormous hook and uncomplicated romantic intentions make it one of the album’s most immediately accessible songs.
Then “Kid in a Candy Store” arrives with its trousers already halfway down. Built around a woman named Candy Rose and enough innuendo to alarm a respectable neighbourhood, it carries the spicy, mischievous streak that very few contemporary bands could deliver without sounding hopelessly contrived. Airbourne somehow get away with it. That sort of unapologetic filth once belonged naturally to bands such as AC/DC and Motörhead; here it feels less like imitation than the continuation of a rapidly disappearing tradition.
“Sky High” openly embraces the band’s Australian heritage through a riff carrying unmistakable AC/DC DNA. However, Airbourne stopped being merely a tribute to their forebears years ago. The influence remains clear, but the performance is faster, more abrasive and considerably more restless. This is not AC/DC cosplay; it is a familiar rock ’n’ roll language spoken with Airbourne’s own accent.
“Who Put the Rhythm in You?” offers one of the album’s most effective variations. Another collaboration with Adams and Lange, it introduces a looser swing, brilliantly infectious vocal hooks and a key change that makes an already enormous song feel even bigger. It retains the grit expected from Airbourne while revealing how effectively a little additional songwriting polish can broaden their sound without softening it.
“Christmas Bonus” has already enjoyed plenty of time outside the album, but it fits comfortably within this collection of bad decisions and worse behaviour. Sleigh bells, festive musical references and a particularly suggestive encounter with Santa combine in a Christmas song unlikely to receive heavy rotation in shopping centres. It is ridiculous, knowingly indecent and extremely good fun — precisely as intended.
The defiant “Last Man Standing” restores a more combative tone. Driven by the refusal to kneel or surrender, it possesses the kind of chorus that seems incomplete without thousands of raised fists. There is nothing particularly complicated about it, but complexity has never been the objective. It is an anthem built for the stage, where its blunt force will almost certainly become far greater than the sum of its parts.
“Rock N Roll Ya” is perhaps the album’s most predictable moment. It contains the necessary riff, rasp and chant-ready refrain, but surrounded by stronger songs it feels closer to Airbourne operating on autopilot. Even so, their autopilot remains louder and more entertaining than many bands at full concentration.
“Bogotá” changes that immediately. The heaviest track on the album carries a sharper metallic edge and finds Joel pushing his voice with particular aggression. It seems that touring with Judas Priest allowed something very useful to rub off on them. The guitars have extra steel, the rhythm section hits harder and the entire performance feels slightly more dangerous. Airbourne may worship at the altar of classic rock, but this is the point where they allow more heavy metal through the doors.
“Hell’s Got No Vacancy” maintains that tougher momentum. Its central idea — that even Hell has decided Joel O’Keeffe is more trouble than it needs — could scarcely belong to another band. Fast, belligerent and punctuated by another fiery guitar solo, it transforms a familiar tale of rock ’n’ roll damnation into a final burst of stubborn survival.
The album closes with “Send Me to Rock ’N’ Roll Heaven”, a celebration of the musicians waiting at the ultimate afterparty. Lemmy, Bon Scott, John Bonham, Little Richard and other departed legends are remembered not through sombre reflection but through the music they helped create. News reports announcing their deaths briefly cut through the song, reminding us that rock’s founding generation is disappearing. Yet Airbourne refuse to end in mourning. Their response is to turn the volume higher and continue what those musicians began.
That closing track also reveals the heart beneath all the beer, sex and cartoonish bravado. Airbourne’s devotion to rock ’n’ roll is completely sincere. They understand its history, embrace its absurdity and recognise their responsibility to keep it alive.
The self-titled Airbourne offers few surprises, and its commitment to a familiar formula occasionally makes certain songs blend together. Yet demanding artistic reinvention from this band misses the point. What matters is whether the riffs land, the choruses rise and the record makes the listener want to move closer to the speakers.
Jose Crespo for The Riff Collective
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