With Rick Rubin at the production helm of the latest release from ZZ Top good things were expected, and good things have certainly been delivered.
On the four track ep ‘Texicali’ the band have rolled back time to the sound of the classic years between ’75 and ’79 – when they had the run of Fandango, Tejas and Deguello – and given a tip of the hat to the young guns that they were.
As I listened to it the years of Eliminator, Afterburner and Recycler just faded away like a bad memory.
Now it’s all guns blazin’ and the boys are back in town and looking for some Tush.
Opening proceedings with ‘I gotsta get paid’ it sounds like the band have jumped on DJ Dmd’s ’25 Lighters’ and bundled it bound and gagged into the trunk of a caddie and taken it on the last ride of its life.
There’s a grave dug for that song and a toast of tequila is being raised in its memory.
Similar to how Johnny Cash took ‘Hurt’ out of Trent Reznor’s hands ZZ Top have done the same here, and that song just belongs to them now.
With ‘Chartreuse’ they revisit ‘Tush’ and give it a goose, and while some will wonder why they have such an inimitable track transplanted into a new song I’ll hazard a guess that they are trying to maintain a solid link with where they came from, and by setting up this blatant flag-post they are providing a younger generation with something that they can use it to guide them backwards to the bands back catalogue.
Then ‘Consumption’ comes along and sets a grinding groove with a bit of Texan funk squeezed into the grooves.
Now if there was ever a song that needed a juke joint with a pole looking for a dance partner then this is it.
The ep then finishes strong with the fire cooling on the ode to the end of a relationship that’s ‘Over You’.
The closest thing that ZZ Top could do to a love song.
If the forthcoming album matches the quality of the songs on display here then that little ol’ band from Texas will assuredly have a hit on their hands.
