Deguello
ZZ Top
Warner Bros.
By Lester Bangs

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 concert.  Or vice versa.  No matter -- the long-
awaited Deguello is just what it looks like: a sidewinder-slick slash in the
guts.

On one level, this may be the samd 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 worskips 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 cliche, with nice lug-wrench action in both the guitar solo and
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 a band that still uses cars to
get laud ("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 performing 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 dieseul 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 cliche -- 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 tehirs.
Yet listening to Deguello really is as painful as trying to swallow tympanic
jalapenos, so proceed with caution (and ear your "high energy" hearts out,
mush-grooved power poppers).  If you lose control, you can always douche
with guacamole.

(Rolling Stone)

[PZ: Lester Bangs was a rock music critic who was well known for his 
adversarial style and was fired by Rolling Stone.  See his biographical
article on Wikipedia for further information.]