At some point in their career, you had to know that ZZ Top was going to get tired of trying to recreate the flashpoint of success they experienced with Eliminator<\/i>. They were going to have to return to their blooze-rock roots and just crank out the tunes.<\/p>\n
But their attempts to do this met with limited success, both in terms of execution and popularity. Antenna<\/i> and Rhythmeen<\/i> were decent enough (if sometimes unsteady) efforts, and XXX<\/i> was an absolute flop. And, there’s no denying that the sales numbers were nowhere near what discs like Eliminator<\/i> or Afterburner<\/i> moved.<\/p>\n
With Mescalero<\/i>, ZZ Top’s fourth and final disc for RCA, Billy Gibbons and company apparently adopted a \u201cto hell with it\u201d attitude and just crafted music they liked, and stayed closer to their roots, even if it wasn’t strictly blues-based. And \u2013 surprise, surprise \u2013 it works.<\/p>\n
Now, if you go into this disc expecting to hear the musical brilliance that was on Eliminator<\/i> or the same kind of studio polish, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. If anything, this seems to carry forward what they were doing on Rhythmeen<\/i>, albeit with a more distorted, heavier bass line (which I can’t say I’m a huge fan of). But if you go into this expecting to hear a band who has nothing to prove, and just wants to get to playing some music that feels like it would be a perfect fit on either side of the Tex-Mex border\u2026then, you should be pleased.<\/p>\n
While none of the songs on Mescalero<\/i> jump out as being tracks you’d regularly hear on the radio \u2013 and it sure seems like Gibbons self-censors himself a few times throughout the course of this disc \u2013 there are plenty of songs which you’ll find yourself tapping your foot to. \u201cAlley-Gator,\u201d \u201cBuck Nekkid,\u201d and \u201cCrunchy\u201d are surprisingly fun, as is \u201cMe So Stupid.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gibbons’s voice is definitely sounding strained throughout the album, and bassist Dusty Hill is underutilized as a lead vocalist this time around. As for Frank Beard \u2013 well, his drumming has always been dependable, and I admit I’m getting more used to the different sounds generated by his kit on this one.<\/p>\n
There are a few throwaways on this one, too. \u201cPunk Ass Boyfriend\u201d and \u201cPiece\u201d both just don’t light up the speakers. And while one can understand why ZZ Top would do a song like \u201cQue Lastima\u201d (yes, it’s all in Spanish), it doesn’t grab me like I would have hoped it could have.<\/p>\n
Did Mescalero<\/i> deserve to be one of ZZ Top’s most forgotten albums? No; surprisingly, this is one of the best of their post-Eliminator<\/i> career, and deserves to be rediscovered. And I think if the band members could have their way, it would be rediscovered over a plate of nachos and a bottle of tequila.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33008,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5723],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-44790","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-zz-top","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44790"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=44790"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=44790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}