With their second album,
Rio Grande Mud
,
ZZ Top
uses the sound they sketched out on their debut as a blueprint, yet they tweak it in slight but important ways. The first difference is the heavier, more powerful sound, turning the boogie guitars into a locomotive force. There are slight production flares that date this as a 1972 record, but for the most part, this is a straight-ahead, dirty
blues-rock
difference. Essentially like the first album, then. That's where the second difference comes in -- they have a much better set of songs this time around, highlighted by the swaggering shuffle
"Just Got Paid,"
the pile-driving boogie
"Bar-B-Q,"
the slide guitar workout
"Apologies to Pearly,"
and two
Dusty Hill
-sung numbers,
"Francine"
and
"Chevrolet."
There are still a couple of tracks that don't quite gel and their fuzz-
blues
still can sound a little one-dimensional at times, but
is the first flowering of
as a great, down-n-dirty blooze
rock
band. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine