ZZ Top: Deguello : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

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So they're more popular than the Rolling Stones? So were Crosby, Stills and Nash. What makes ZZ Top a kitchen-slinger, party-time band from here to the Brazos is that, like Austin's Fabulous Thunderbirds, it's saved white blues from being yesterday's conceit. Or vice versa. No matter–the long-awaited Degüello is just what it looks like: a sidewinder-slick slash in the guts.

On one level, this may be the same old stuff, but then let's not kid ourselves: the Sex Pistols' Steve Jones was playing Chuck Berry riffs. As far as authenticity goes, ZZ Tops' Billy Gibbons sings like a zipper, and in the group's more-than-par cover version of Sam and Dave's "I Thank You," his guitar sounds like somebody rifling through a toolbox. Can it actually be that ZZ Top also pulls off "Dust My Broom," the most molasses-overrecorded song in history next to "Rock Me, Baby"? Well, aside from getting the Joe Don Baker Award for Sheer Balls, they do middlin' fair, I'd say. It's like "Mood Indigo"–everybody worships it because it's the idol's toe, and these boys' pew duties retread water. That's a compliment.

As for the originals, "Lowdown in the Street" is simply pro forma. But "Hi Fi Mama" may be better than "I'm Down" by the Beatles: truly violent music and whang-dang beyond mere professionalism. "I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide" is a 'nuff-hep new cliché, with nice lug-wrench action in both the guitar solo and the following fretboard dialogue, in which one's gruntin' sullen while the other chaws cacti. I concur, at any rate. And while I feel for these poor bastards, what can you think about aband that still uses cars to get laid ("She Loves My Automobile")? Maybe I've been in New York City too long, but I believe that to pursue a course so null-lobed–not to mention physically contortive (though the singer admits they were "sloppy drunk") – and then whine about her preferring dual carbs to his abashed peter is particularly ungallant.

Perhaps because of this, Texas kink surfaces in "A Fool for Your Stockings," during which these Gila-chompers get downright weird. "The sweet things can always get sweeter," our hero waxes poetic, meaning: put 'em on, you bitch! "Manic Mechanic," meanwhile, is CB action hooked up to a diesel full of Devo licks.

The consciousness behind all this stuff as manifested lyrically, etc., is either truly outer space or the usual street-corner, male-supremacist jive, depending on your point of view. My point of view is that the skull on the street corner is outer space.

Punks used to wear razor blades, but these guys play 'em, lividly. It's fun, like eating tequila backward. They're bound and determined to suck you into their cliché–but, hey, everybody has to search for roots, remember? Alex 'n' Newsweek said so. ZZ Top just laid off awhile to dig up more of theirs. Yet listening to Degüello really is as painful as trying to swallow tympanic jalapeños, so proceed with caution (and eat your "high energy" hearts out, mush-grooved power poppers). If you lose control, you can always douche with guacamole.