THROUGH decades, deaths and disasters, AC/DC keeps thundering on.

Forty-seven years along, and with the closest thing possible to their original lineup, the rockers released “Power Up,” their first album in six years, Friday.

It’s also the first since the 2017 death of Malcolm Young, who founded the band in Sydney, Australia in 1973 with his little brother, Angus. “Power Up” is dedicated to the elder brother and is shot through with his spirit and songwriting.

“We all felt Malcolm around us, he was there,” said lead singer Brian Johnson, 73. “Malcolm was a very strong character in real life, and him passing away wasn’t gonna stop that. He was there, everywhere, and I think you can tell it on the record.”

All 12 tracks are co-written by Malcolm and Angus Young, selected by the younger Young from a trove of unused songs that piled up during the band’s long life.

“Malcolm and myself over the years, whenever we’d come to an album we always walked in with a lot of A-grade songs,” the 65-year-old Angus Young said. “We always had a stack full more left that were all great, great tracks.”

Most of the songs came from a fruitful writing period in a long gap between albums from 2000 to 2008, and Angus Young chose those that most evoked his big brother.

“Power Up,” their 17th studio album, whose first single and video, the blues-inflected “Shot in the Dark,” were released in October, is overflowing with the same thundering chords and schoolboy sneers that made them legends with albums like “Highway to Hell” and “Back in Black.” The latter was also dedicated to a recently deceased essential bandmate, original singer Bon Scott, who died in 1980.

With Malcolm Young suffering from the dementia that would lead to his death, his nephew Stevie Young stood in for him on 2014’s “Rock or Bust,” and did it again on “Power Up,” though at 63 he’s hardly the new kid.

The album had been recorded in 2018 and early 2019, and the jam sessions came in preparation for the planned release date, early in 2020.

When the coronavirus reached pandemic levels, the album was shelved and the band went dark, stuck across different continents as they isolated with families and friends.

After nearly a year passed, the band and Columbia Records opted to release it in November.

“We’re doing a lot of promotional stuff to let people know, to get the message out that AC/DC’s got a new album,” Young said. “Hopefully to cheer you up.”

(SD-Agencies)