ZZ Top: La Futura – review

The first ZZ Top album for nine years opens with the most remarkable rock'n'roll song of the year. Gotsta Get Paid is an adaptation not of some old blues or boogie, but of the Houston hip-hop classic 25 Lighters by DJ DMD with Lil' Keke and Fat Pat. It doesn't sound like hip-hop, naturally – it's reconfigured as a dirty, lazy, heavy groove, Billy Gibbons's growling guitar and voice front and centre. It's simply brilliant. In fact, their 15th album would sound amazing even if the songs weren't up to scratch – Gibbons and co-producer Rick Rubin have done a remarkable job in making the band sound both timely and timeless, and fiercer than at any time in their career. But the songs hit the mark pretty consistently, too: on Consumption, with its hiccups and pauses, ZZ Top sound like an engine coughing and spluttering and roaring into life; Chartreuse picks up where Tush left off; I Don't Wanna Lose, Lose You could have been buffed up for Eliminator, but is all the better for being unpolished. It's an unexpectedly wonderful return from an undervalued band.