Published on Oct 22, 1999
In recent years, ZZ Top has been following a disconcerting
musical path. Either they have released an album that is
incredible, or they have released an album that is unlistenable.
Middle ground? There hasn’t been much. The one constant is that ZZ
Top’s sales have not been matching the glory days of
Eliminator and
Afterburner – which is a shame. Their 1996 album
Rhythmeen barely made a blip on the sales radar, but I
thought that album was a major step forward for that little ol’
band from Texas.
Now comes
XXX, their first album in three years (and third for RCA).
Unfortunately, with only a few exceptions, this disc hardly
suggests that the band is on a serious comeback trail, and might
even be worse than
Antenna, which sounded like the band was wandering around
without a musical roadmap.
The trio of guitarist Billy Gibbons, bassist Dusty Hill and
drummer Frank Beard have stripped down ther sound (something
they’ve kind of been doing since the days of
Antenna) to the point where they sound like they’re
recording live without overdubs. The problem is that this leaves
many of the tracks sounding naked and undeveloped; cuts like “Made
Into A Movie” and “Trippin'” are songs that could have easily
benefitted from a litle overdubbing of guitar parts.
Musically, ZZ Top is hurting. Their once
cutesy-but-risqué song titles like “Tube Snake Boogie” had
their time, but these days, tracks like “Poke Chop Sandwich” and
“Crucifixx-A-Flat” are as stale as last week’s donuts. It’s almost
as if ZZ Top forgot the magic words that turned earlier songs like
these into enjoyable numbers. And the sexual asides as on
“36-22-36” were cute once, but now it just sounds like three dirty
old men dreaming of what once was.
This isn’t to say that
XXX is a complete failure. Tracks like “Beatbox” restore
some faith in me that ZZ Top still has the power to make a decent
song that infects your soul with its groove. “Dreadmon Boogoloo”
comes close, but an instrumental from these guys? Admittedly,
Gibbons and Hill’s vocals are not as solid as they once were, but
this isn’t the thing I would have expected from them.
The album finally starts to come together on the four tracks
which were recorded live (or at least they sound like they were; my
advance copy has no liner notes, so I’ll assume the crowd noise
wasn’t just faded in). “Sinpusher” sounds a lot like “Pincushion”
from
Antenna – and it’s been some years since I listened to that
album, so I’ll admit a bit of ignorance here. Their take on “(Let
Me Be Your) Teddy Bear” is much more sinister than the version
Elvis Presley made famous, but is interesting nonetheless.
Likewise, “Hey Mr. Millionaire” and, to a lesser extent, “Belt
Buckle,” show the live power that ZZ Top has. (Surprisingly, this
is the first time on record that ZZ Top has succeeded with the live
setting; I thought the live set from
Fandango was terrible.)
XXX is not the breakthrough album that ZZ Top had hoped for
– hell, in some cases, this album serves as a suggestion that it
might be time for these guys to hang it up. But there is enough of
a spark to let you know that these guys are still alive – even if
this album is mostly needing intensive care.