Walmart got exclusive rights to distribute the album in North America. The songs were mostly recorded live in the studio engineer Mike Fraser used only sparse overdubs and effects to keep the tracks as close to the originals as possible.īlack Ice was released exclusively in physical formats, as the group did not sell its music digitally at the time. O'Brien tried to recapture the rock sound of the band's early work, as opposed to the blues orientation of Ballbreaker and Stiff Upper Lip, with suggestions such as adding ' soul crooning' to Brian Johnson's singing. Recording happened during March and April 2008 at The Warehouse Studio in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The first composing sessions between guitarists/brothers Angus and Malcolm Young were in London in 2003. The album's development was delayed because bass guitarist Cliff Williams sustained an injury and the band changed labels from Elektra Records to Sony Music Entertainment. Black Ice has the longest running time of any AC/DC studio album. It marked the band's first original recordings since 2000's Stiff Upper Lip, with the eight-year gap being the longest between AC/DC's successive studio albums.
Released internationally on 20 October 2008, it was produced by Brendan O'Brien. It was the band's fourteenth internationally released studio album and the fifteenth in Australia. Black Ice is the fifteenth studio album by Australian hard rock band AC/DC.