ZZ Top's First Album - ZZ Top

Advantages: Several outstanding tracks.
Disadvantages: Weak ballads and too much filler.

...ZZ Top's most recent studio release, shows that even after nearly 40 years together, they are still capable of producing some of the finest music out there- an almost perfect combination of blues and rock n' roll. This album has several standout tracks, which easily match their most famous work. Bassist dusty Hill takes over singing duties on Piece, and the result is one of their finest tracks to date, with two incredible guitar solos from Billy Gibbons. He also demonstrates his considerable vocal talents on closing track Liquor, a classic down and dirty blues number that shows that ZZ Top are still up there with the best of them. Buck Nekkid shows the bands more humorous side, with great lyrics, a classic blues riff, and some seriously good guitar playing.But sadly, this album is far from perfect. The main criticism is that there are... Read review

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Advantages: -
Disadvantages: -

...’s just killing me”, “What’s up with that”, “Black Fly” and “Vincent Price Blues”. “She’s…” should be well known as the song is part of the soundtrack of the famous Quentin Tarantino / Robert Rodriguez – movie „From Dusk Till Dawn“. According to ZZ Top, this song was written after watching the movie in only half an hour and recorded in another half – and you can hear this, which is not meant in a negative way. Songs as rough and rude as this one are very rare. „Black Fly“ is a song in best ZZ Top – tradition. It features a cool guitar riff supported by a unusual jumping rhythm section. “What’s…” also is a great song. The muffy guitar sound can only be called cool. “Vincent…... Read review

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Advantages: A more commercial sound, brilliant lyrics
Disadvantages: It's not Thick as a Brick

...This was the Tull 'comeback' album that stunned the rock world when it won the 1989 Grammy for best Hard Rock Album ahead of the odds on favourite 'And Justice for All' from Metallica. Whether this really is a hard rock album is another matter - it's certainly not a typical Tull album (if such exists) but it opens with a very ZZ Top influenced Steel Monkey whilst other tracks - notably Farm on the Freeway and Budapest - bring to mind Dire Straits. In part that's because Ian Anderson had, perforce, to change his vocal style following the throat problems that had beset him earlier in the decade, leading to a slower, more 'spoken' style of song narration. This also helps makes it perhaps the most 'commercial' sounding of Tull's many albums. Lyrically it is one of Ian's best, and songs like Farm on the... Read review

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