Thought to be a stopgap record, El Loco further injects elements which would soon drive music fans to record stores in droves in search of ZZ Top albums – New Wave experiments (“Groovy Little Hippie Pad”) and even more pronounced sexual escapades (“Pearl Necklace”). Not their best, but still interesting.

My pick for best ZZ Top album of the early years. The free-wheeling, outlaw spirit of Texas blues is amplified to not only higher energy levels but also from a number of different, diverse angles in what ends up being one of the most appealing packages the Top has ever sprung on the public.

Although I find the album a slight bit overrated, for all intents and purposes this is where the ZZ Top legend begins.

If Bloodrock U.S.A. was intended to be "At Last - Another Amazing Adventure to Open Your Mind" as the tag line read on the grotesque cover, then it's a bold, desperate, last-chance gamble, smack dab in the middle of an era dealing in treachery, lies, and deceit. The band's first three albums feel like half-consistent, backroom warm-ups, compared to this cold and anguished tome, where finally all cogs of the Bloodrock monster machine are working effortlessly and in unison. Interestingly enough, it also makes a complete mockery out of the second version of Bloodrock as well, which was more political and environmental in their aims, but far less beliveable. No one line sums it up better than this from "American Burn": "The end of your life is a steal". That was the prevailing wisdom of the time, and coincidentally, not too dissimilar from the present day, either. A sad, paranoid, inevitable sort of doomed magic drives this one to the top of my personal best-of list, as the original lineup would crumble mere weeks after the album was completed.

Not that the first two Hawkwind albums are horrible or anything, but here, on the third album, one could make the argument that they arrived as a force to be reckoned with, from a number of perspectives. With the additions of Lemmy Kilmister and Simon King to the lineup, they finally gained a modicum of stability in the all-important rhythm section. The material is still driving, mantric space rock, but much more to the point than the brain-numbing, sprawling jams of previous efforts - yes, even the epic-length "Brainstorm". In fact, this is the group at their prime, trance-groove best, IMHO - at least when it comes to a studio recording - and reissues include singles like "Urban Guerrilla" and the 50's derived sludge-swing of "Brain Box Pollution". Not to be missed.