Tejas album cover
Tejas

ZZ Top

1976
London Records

Even in their early blues ’n’ boogie days, ZZ Top were always weirder than people gave them credit for. Their fourth full-length studio album (following the half-studio/half-live Fandango!) is one of their most stylistically adventurous. Billy Gibbons’ guitars are slipperier, twanging where they might be expected to crunch, and Frank Beard’s drums are loose and dry, leaving plenty of air in the grooves. “Arrested For Driving While Blind” features booze-based lyrical puns worthy of George Thorogood, and “El Diablo” is a mellowed-out, rambling tale of south-of-the-border criminality. From the opening “It’s Only Love” to “Pan Am Highway Blues” to the closing instrumental “Asleep In The Desert,” this is closer to psychedelic country rock than the heavy Texas blues that ZZ Top made their name with.

Phil Freeman

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