Back to Back Records: Afterburner by ZZ Top
I've got very strong feelings about ZZ Top's Eliminator. Along with Dire Straits' Brothers In Arms, I heard it played constantly at Digger's and the Bayside way back in the day. Just opening bars of "Legs" or "Sharp Dressed Man" can bring back the taste of those kick ass turkey sandwiches, or the seafood chowder. Eliminator is also bar none the perfect music for getting jiggy with it: it's never too fast, heavy, or sappy. The ladies can really shake it to the computerized beats, and the guys aren't forced to embrace their feminine side as the riffs reek of stale beer and exhaust. It is my firm conviction that Eliminator has been responsible for many, many pregnancies, and I'm absolutely sure that one of my friends back home was conceived to it.
Having said that, I prefer the 1985 follow-up album, Afterburner. While it is true that the Texan trio stepped further away from their blues roots and incorporated more drum machines and synthesizers into their formula, I find Afterburner to be the superior album. As a child of the 80's, I'm always going to be drawn to cheesy, overproduced music, as long as it's got big drums, vintage 80's space age technology, and at least one mandatory slow song, so this should come as no surprise.
This album is like a gritty Texas strip club dropped into Mad Max and Maximum Overdrive. Machines are threatening to take over, and humanity hangs in the balance, but then along comes the bearded posse that is ZZ Top to impregnate as many remaining females as possible. Not surprisingly, you'll find a lot of not-so-thinly-veiled sexual innuendos and a song that would have been perfect for a middle school dance all mixed with driving beats and killer riffs.
"Sleeping Bag" opens things up in a driving, midpaced chug, and you can tell right away that this album is going to be a sequel to Eliminator. Programmed drums, samples, and other technology is prevalent, but it's clear that it has fused seemingly with the organic elements of ZZ Top's blues based rock. A biomechanical hybrid, if I've ever heard one--this is what Robocop dreams of when he's pulled a long shift in the red light district.
On the faster end of things, you've got songs like "Planet of Women," "Delirious," "Can't Stop Rocking," and "Stages." "Stages" has to be the strongest track on here, with an infectious melody and a stunning lead break. You've got the mandatory sexual references with "Woke Up With Wood," which also features choice blues riffs, but it's juvenille humour is swept aside by the romance that is "Rough Boy."
Ladies and gentlemen...please rise for slow song. Take your positions.
The ladies didn't take too well to the references to morning wood in the past song, and are threatening to leave and go back into the radioactive wastelands, so the saviours of humanity slow it down. Way down. While the chord progression in "Rough Boy" has been mathematically proven to exponentially increase the gravity of panties to neutron star levels, and the brute honesty of Billy Gibbon's confessional lyrics will break all female resistance, it's the solos that will really draw the ladies back to ZZ Top's bomb shelter in droves. From there Billy Gibbons, Frank Beard, and Dusty Hill will fulfill their noble task of repopulating the planet.
Why they didn't put this song on the Voyager probes is beyond me; if it were to reach some dying alien race, this would be their salvation. I would definitely suggest placing copies in all secret government facilities in case of emergency. After all, when Skynet takes over, we're going to be living in unprecedented squalor, and we'll need something to get us in the mood.
Things get weird with "Velcro Fly" and the beginning of "I Got the Message." The latter quickly evolves into a typcial ZZ Top track, but "Velcro Fly" is another monster all together. The post apocalyptic war drums pound through the whole length of the song, backed by slap bass that sounds like robots stomping and slapping their booties. It is embellished with bluesy guitar flourishes, but other than that, it's a full machine.
Afterburner sadly goes into decline after "Velcro Fly" with the upbeat "Sitting Low in the Lap of Luxury" and "Delirious." Both songs are driving to the max, and appealing to the more blues focused fans, but they are not up to snuff with the rest of the album. Still, they're a good way to fade out until you throw the album on again.
The chief reason that I prefer this album to Eliminator is it's length and consistency. Clocking in at just over 37 minutes with ten songs, there's not a lot of filler. Sure, I could probably pass up on "Keep on Rocking" and "Sitting Low in the Lap of Luxury," but they're the closest that we get to the old blues style. And even though Afterburner doesn't feature as many Top 40 hits as its predecessor, the songs feel more mature and better written on a whole. Eliminator had very, very high peaks, but the stuff between wasn't that good.
And as I've mentioned before, the technology was better integrated here. The line between man and machine is very thin, and you can tell that ZZ Top felt much more comfortable using the robots on this one. It means that you get a consistent listening experience with strong hooks and pulse of our future metal overlords.
