Year : 2012Genre : Blues Rock, Southern Rock, Boogie Rock
Label : American Recordings
Origin : United States
Rating : 8.2 / 10
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It's been more than a decade since these highly authentic and influential blues/Southern/boogie rock Ancients have emerged to resonate a full length sonic declaration, and the trio brings smoke, chrome and eminent bluesy chops, coming forth with a release that sounds to have a relentless and superbly natural desire to submit to the ZZ Top kind of music with True Love and True Blood, as about 101% of this record would serve more than highly suitable as the eloquent and expressive sonic backdrop to compliment a busy day at Merlott's.
The music of ZZ Top wasn't ever in the need of evolution, IS not in the need for it at all, and won't ever give a dime with two lost holes in it for pondering the possibility of evolution, as ZZ Top always delivered a character of music that has reached its full value timeless potential at day 1, already. The members of this band always have did what they want to do right here, right now, and this is none other than to offer 39 minutes of fresh variation on the music that grew practically immortal the day it first began to connect with the heart, courtesy of its ability to render a woman, armed with a perfect body and sporting the head of a crocodile.
ZZ Top still is ultra-original in the sense that it is sufficient to hear none other than 1.5 seconds of Billy Gibbons' guitar playing to call out : "hey, this is Billy fucking Gibbons riffing!" -second track, "Chartreuse" is a good example of this. By the 1.5th second of the song, you know without any doubt whatsoever that it is a new ZZ Top track, and this equates musical excitement in my book, and I'm pretty sure it equates that in yours, too. Read on to find out more about the spin.
The La Futura full length is particularly organic in its production values, coating you into the luscious impression that the agenda was to create the intimate listening experience of a live show taking place in a southern bar frequented mostly by alligators. The temper of the flow is steady mid-tempo for the most part, the tempo you could rock out comfortably to with 3 beer mugs in your hands while a female vamp or two are chewing on your neck.
The anatomy, the behavior of the songcraft is pretty classic ZZ Top, and the fact that you can hear the intrinsic meaning and related ultimate value of certain earlier ZZ Top classics resurface, are a good thing this time around, as opposed of being a bad thing. This is the only acceptable expression of so called nostalgia, probably. To give you some examples of these relevant but pleasant similarities, "Heartache in Blue" is ultra-reminiscent to "I'm Bad, I'm nationwide", the song "I don't want to lose you" is the direct sibling of the Back to the Future 2 soundtrack "Doubleback" - just listen the harmonic structures in the hook - while "Flying High" reminds me of the ZZ Top song "Gun Love", which - "Gun Love" - is one of my all time favorites from this great band. I was fantasizing about eloquently shaped female legs listening to "Gun Love" as a child, and I'm not ashamed to admit that not much have changed in this regard since then.
The album has a couple of truly nice-, exceptional surprises up its sleeves, too. I especially like track 4, called "Over You". The build offers a structural anatomy quite akin to that of the classic '60s song "A Whiter Shade of Pale", but, with Billy Gibbons' singing, the ethos of this songwriting approach gives out absolutely everything it ever had the capacity to give out, and it really is pretty awesome and I love it. It's kind of the antitheses of a "normal" love song, but with twice as much emotion than those non-surprising sentiments most often found in love songs. It's worth noting that Billy Gibbons, now that he is about 677 years old, - give or take - has successfully developed a badass, superb extra rasp-factor in his singing voice, - kind of a Tom Waits vibe - which does the songs pretty good service. Gibbons totally maintained the ability to remain on pitch, and he badassly sounds like he has been drinking gasoline on fire all the night before, THEN a truck rolled over his voice for good measure. This song, "Over You", also features a short, but very pretty chord passage that summons the very best moments of Foo Fighters, "Up in arms", anyone?
ZZ Top emerges with fresh material, and they are sounding as honest and authentic as ever. To be frank with you, I could live with a couple of more tracks on this spin to call it an immediate full value classic LP of these Great Ancients, but a dayumm solid southern alligator rock release without a doubt. Recommended.
Rating : 8.2 / 10
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