You've got to hand it to the fabled lil' ole band from Texas. ZZ Top has 
used up-to-the-minute technology ever since 1985's "Sleeping Bag," so Messrs. 
Gibbons, Hill and Beard do the boogie-plus-beats thing on XXX with more 
panache than, say, the Rolling Stones' hapless "Anybody Seen My Baby." From 
the bubbling "Poke Chop Sandwich" on, the trio streamlines their gutbucket 
raunch. And it isn't just blues forms the guys retool; they also sneak the 
intro of Sabbath's "War Pigs" into a lament. Lots of old farts flirt with 
electronica - call it art-disco if you like - but with a tune like 
"Dreadmonboogaloo" these veteran surrealists demonstrate that they can 
command a drum'n'bass riddim just as surely as they do a stark Texas boogie. 
A quarter of the way through XXX, the studio tracks yield to a club recording 
of the band blasting through a rearranged version of 1994's "Pincushion" 
(redubbed "Sin Pusher") and a 12-bar take on Elvis' "Teddy Bear" with bassist 
Dusty Hill unleashing his finest howl. Given the power of these cuts, it's a 
shame that the band will probably spend its current tour playing overly 
vintage tunes like "La Grange" to folks who would likely erupt in a rampage a 
la Woodstock '99 if they were challenged by the comparatively provocative 
stuff found on XXX.

*Thanks to JohnZZCog@cs.com for sending this in.
Originally posted on vh1.com