First posted April 28, 2008. Last updated September 9, 2018.
Tres HombresZZ Top |
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Released: July 26, 1973
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Quotable: ZZ Top “never got it better than they did here” – Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide |
Review: For their third album, ZZ Top brought in Terry Manning as engineer and were rewarded with their commercial breakthrough when the album landed in the top ten of the Billboard album chart. “It couldn’t have happened to a better record. ZZ Top finally got their low-down, cheerfully sleazy blooze-n-boogie right on this, their third album. As their sound gelled, producer Bill Ham discovered how to record the trio so simply that they sound indestructible, and the group brought the best set of songs they’d ever have to the table.” STE In his Rolling Stone review of Tres Hombres, Spanish for “three men,” Steve Apple said they were “one of the most inventive of the three-piece rockers” WK with “the dynamic rhythms that only the finest of the three-piece bands can cook up.” WK However, he also said they were “only one of several competent Southern rocking bands” with “an advantage over most white rockers” because they “sound black” WK and he wondered when “audiences will get tired of hearing the same ... ‘Poot yawl hans together' patter.’” WK All Music Guide’s somewhat agreed with that assessment, saying there’s seemingly “nothing really special about the record, since it’s just a driving blues-rock album from a Texas bar band, but that’s what’s special about it. It has a filthy groove and an infectious feel, thanks to Billy Gibbons’ growling guitars and the steady propulsion of Dusty Hill and Frank Beard’s rhythm section. They get the blend of bluesy shuffles, gut-bucket rocking, and off-beat humor just right.” STE Pitchfork’s Andy Beta called it “a masterful melding of complementary styles, cramming Southern rock and blues boogie through the band’s own idiosyncratic filter.’” WK In 2013, Andrew Dansby said in the Houston Chronicle that the album was “full of characters and doings so steeped in caricature – yet presented straight-faced – as to invite skepticism. The album is stuffed with color and flavor.” WK “ZZ Top’s very identity comes from this earthy sound and songs as utterly infectious as Waitin’ for the Bus, Jesus Just Left Chicago, Move Me on Down the Line, and the John Lee Hooker boogie La Grange. In a sense, they kept trying to remake this record from this point on – what is Eliminator if not Tres Hombres with sequencers and synthesizers? – but they never got it better than they did here.” STE
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