Album Review: ZZ Top - Recycler (1990)

ZZ Top's music has always been seen as the kind you'd associate with blokes sporting handlebar mustaches, who drive American muscle cars that'll make an SS Commodore look like a Reliant Robin and, paradoxically, have heart tattoos on arms thicker than tree trunks with the word 'mum' written across it. In other words, if one of these blokes told you to soil yourself, you would, for fear of being robbed of anything on you worth more than $29.95 and subsequently fed to a giant metal behemoth known as a Salvation Army clothing bin. This is partially true of their 80s and early 90s albums, where guys would turn up to their local servo in a 454 big-block powered hot rod cranking out "Sharp Dressed Man", wearing sunnies and tight black shirts with flaming skulls on them, just to project the image of manliness, when in reality they are actually saying, "I'm hung like a half chewed Tic Tac, I urinate with tweezers whilst sitting down, I have to wipe my nuts when I'm finished, I hope you don't get any ideas." And in reality these guys are usually skinny little 5"6" runts who probably had their fair share of being rolled home from school in a steel garbage can wearing the back of their undies on their heads.

Recycler is one of those typical ZZ Top records. On the whole it seems to follow on from Eliminator and Afterburner, however in other ways, notably a reduction in tempo and the absence of synthesizers, it also marks a change in musical direction. "2000 Blues", for instance, sounds like Afterburner's "Rough Boy" on pot. Other tracks, like "Penthouse Eyes", "Lovething" and "Tell It", also reflect the slower change in pace, as well as introducing a new, seemingly experimental sound. In contrast, "Burger Man", "Decision or Collision" and "Doubleback" could quite comfortably squeeze in amongst tracks likes "I Need You Tonight", "Thug" or "Velcro Fly." And of course, there's the final track, "Doubleback", which was featured in Back to the Future III. As a slightly interesting fact, the band actually featured in the movie, minus their trademark sunnies, with Gibbons and Hill plucking away on accoustic guitars and Beard beating away on a primitive drum kit.

Overall, Recycler is an album that will appeal to the more adventurous and open-minded ZZ Top fan, and although it is closely related to it's two predecessors, it's probably not the ideal album to listen to for those who are justing getting into the Texas Weird Beard's works. B+