(RCA)
When ZZ Top switched to RCA, they talked about making a change from the synth-pop of the late 80's and getting back to their blues roots. The first RCA album, Antenna didn't quite do it, but the boys from Texas nailed it on the second try. The album with a mean rhythm (hence, Rhythmeen) and blues roots will satisfy the early ZZ Top fans who have been wondering why their band had to get so slick and polished.
What pushed the change was a hurry-up job they did for Quentin Tarantino's soundtrack From Dusk Till Dawn. This single, "She's Just Killing Me" was so rude and raw that the band turned it in with the promise they would polish it up. But the word came back to leave it alone - it was great as is. The trio took it as a confirmation that a stripped down track was what they did best.
Starting with "She's Just Killing Me" which has already been released as a single, ZZ Top created Rhythmeen with the same bare bones, no over dubs, no synth approach. The ZZ Top fans - and there are legions of them - will love Rhythmeen. This is a special album though, for the fans who knew the seventies band without money for the big production, who stuck closer to the blues than to rock. Guitarist Billy Gibbons, bassist Dusty Hill and drummer Frank Beard get back to the road house boogie of the early seventies footstomping songs that first brought them fame. The live-band sound and blues-rock riffs make this the best ZZ Top album in 10 years.
Rhythmeen suffers from the same problem as most of the ZZ Top albums; after a while the tracks become monotonous. And although "the little ol' band from Texas" may have thrown them off the truck, you long for a blast of one of their pop rockers like "Legs". Fans of the eighties band that loved "Legs", "Sharp Dressed Man", "Gimme All Your Loving" won't hear anything like that on Rhythmeen. But, hey, this band has been around for more than twenty years.
