ZZ TOP
RAW
BMG
o, a return to ZZ’s roots. How many times has that line been peddled in connection to a ZZ Top album, only for us to find they’d forgotten to plug in their guitars and Billy Gibbons plays everything through his laptop? Fortunately that is definitely not the case with RAW, which soundtracks the 2019 Netflix documentary , during which Gibbons (vocals/guitar), Dusty Hill (vocals/bass) and Frank Beard (drums) get together for a day in the Gruene Hall — the oldest continually run dance hall in Texas. Sadly, since then Dusty Hill and Otherwise this is pure early ZZ Top, kicking off with an intoxicating and closing with an absolutely belting , with every album getting a look in other than 1976’s puzzlingly underrated Tejas. Quibbles about song selection aside, the rest is almost a total triumph, the most astonishing aspect being the primal monster sound. Gibbons’s guitar tone is as thick and dirty-sweet as molasses and fierier than 125-proof moonshine, while Hill lays down a righteously full and fat bass rumble and Beard’s drums groove and slam. How they mesh seamlessly on tracks such as , (which sounds like a wild drunken brawl), and the slinky is a genuine delight. Ironically, without really trying, ZZ sound more soulful and vital here than they have for yonks.
