The Airbourne self-titled album bundle is available now via Classic Rock magazine’s issue 357, packaging a ‘gold nugget’ vinyl LP of the band’s forthcoming self-titled record with a bespoke magazine cover and a lyric card for Alive After Death (Last Plane Out) that frontman Joel O’Keeffe has individually handwritten and signed.
It is a proper bundle in the old-fashioned sense: physical, tactile, and with a personal touch you cannot stream. The lyric card alone, written out by hand and signed by O’Keeffe for each copy, makes it the kind of thing that ends up framed on a wall rather than shoved in a drawer.
What is in the Airbourne self-titled album bundle
The three components are the vinyl LP of the upcoming album, the signed and handwritten lyric card, and a copy of Classic Rock issue 357 with a cover dedicated to the band. The vinyl is pressed in a ‘gold nugget’ finish, which fits the band’s no-frills, maximum-wattage approach to rock and roll.
Airbourne the album is released via Spinefarm on 4 September, making this the band’s first studio record since Boneshaker in 2019. That is a six-year gap, and judging by what O’Keeffe has been saying about it, they have spent the time loading the thing with as much firepower as they could find.
Mutt Lange, Brian Howes, and a very long build
The production credits alone tell a story. Brian Howes, who worked with the band on 2013’s Black Dog Barking, is back behind the desk. Mike Fraser, who handled engineering duties on both 2016’s Breakin’ Outta Hell and 2010’s No Guts. No Glory., is also on board. And then there is Mutt Lange.
According to Blabbermouth, Lange is a South African megaproducer, and his involvement here carries genuine weight. The report also describes him as reclusive, and given his reputation for taking records apart and rebuilding them until they are bulletproof, his presence on this album is not a small thing. O’Keeffe is well aware of what it means.
‘You look at the records Mutt Lange made, like Back In Black or Def Leppard’s Hysteria,’ O’Keeffe told Classic Rock. ‘They spent a long fucking time making those records. And what happens? Everyone keeps going back to them.’
Def Leppard’s Phil Collen has previously admitted that Lange was ‘about 99%’ responsible for the phenomenal success the band enjoyed in the 1980s. The fact that Airbourne have now worked with him, alongside Bryan Adams as another collaborator on the record, suggests this album was built with serious ambition behind it.
O’Keeffe’s own description of the process is about as direct as it gets: ‘It’s a rocket that we’ve been building and building, and we’ve filled it with this fuel, and we’re ready to light it up and let it go. We’re putting our whole selves out there with this thing. Everything we are as a band, our heart and soul, is in this record.’
That kind of statement can read as hyperbole in a press release. Coming from a band that has spent six years in the making of this, and pulled in one of the most elusive and respected producers in rock history to help shape it, it lands a little differently.
European tour dates before the release
The band’s current European run wraps just as the album arrives. Remaining dates are as follows: 26 August, Kraków Klub Studio, Poland; 29 August, Tallinn Helitehas, Estonia; 31 August, Helsinki Allas Sea Pool, Finland; 3 September, Stockholm Tivoli Grona Lund, Sweden; 5 September, Bergen High Voltage Live, Norway.
The Stockholm show falls two days before the album drops, which means the band will be playing live to audiences who have not yet heard the finished record in full. That is the kind of release-week timing that tends to make for very loud rooms.
The Classic Rock x Airbourne self-titled album bundle is available now from Classic Rock magazine issue 357.
