All you need is a long beard,cheap glasses and a guitar...

ZZTop - Tres Hombres

A blues-rock classic,a masterpice,those are just two tags that perfectly describe ZZTop 's third album,Tres Hombres.In my opinion this is ZZTop's best album,cause it almost makes you forget that this band released synth-pop influenced songs like "Legs" and "Gimme all your lovin'".

"res Hombres is the record that brought ZZ Top their first Top Ten record, making them stars in the process. 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. On the surface, there's 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. 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."(review from allmusic.com)

Back to the roots of rock...blues (actually blues-rock)

The Black Keys - Thickfreakness,Rubber Factory

This is pure blues-rock,raw and unpolished,The White Stripes would kill someone just to sound like them.This is a doublepack consisting of their second and third albums.

"How much otherworldly noise can two guys make? Patrick Carney and Dan Auerbach -- better known as the gutterstomp blues duo the Black Keys -- have the answer to this (not quite) Zen riddle: plenty. Armed only with Carney's drum kit and Auerbach's fuzzed-out guitar and scratchy howl of a voice, the Black Keys have turned in a baker's dozen of sludgy (in a good way), funky, primordial blues numbers with their third album, Rubber Factory.

So, yes, Rubber Factory was actually recorded in a rubber factory in the boys' neighborhood in Akron, Ohio. And while the obvious remark to make here is to compare Auerbach's guttural vocals to slow-moving molten rubber, it's equally apropos to note how the run-down factory-cum-studio informs the Black Keys' songs. Sonically, the album just sounds enormous: opener "When the Lights Go Out" lumbers like Godzilla somehow took a wrong turn and ended up in the Mississippi Delta, while the album's first single, "10 A.M. Automatic" could fill an empty airplane hangar.

Their sound is no more polished than the tracks were on their last album, the also-great thickfreakness, but there's an air of stronger confidence on Rubber Factory. For all of their scruffy, lo-fi, DIY-aesthetic rocking, Carney and Auerbach sound arena-ready. Auerbach calls to ear fellow white-boy blues singers like Kenny Wayne Shepherd's vocalist Noah Hunt and Bad Company's Paul Rodgers on tunes like "10 A.M. Automatic" and "All Hands Against His Own", respectively. If you hadn't realized it already, Rubber Factory clearly outlines the fact that Texas blues (Shepherd), British blues (Bad Company) and gutterblues (the Black Keys) all draw from the same blues well.

But back to the factory's influence. Stomps like "The Desperate Man", "Airplane Blues" and even the haunting steel pedal ballad "The Lengths", bespeak a weight of the world that must have fallen on those who once worked in the factory. Credit Auerbach for evolving into one of the genre's finest lyricists. He doesn't try anything fancy (think Jack White singing about acetaminophen), but he knows the value of following the formulae of his predecessors. You'd be forgiven for thinking that lyrics such as "The girl is on my mind / I try to ignore, try to unwind / But she is on my mind" (from, uh, "The Girl is On My Mind") were written 80 years ago. Hell, just because he can, Auerbach tosses in an old-school murder ballad ("Stack Shot Billy"). Given the age-old feel of Auerbach's compositions, it's no surprise then, that Rubber Factory's two cover, "Grown So Ugly" and the Kinks' "Act Nice and Gentle" fit right in with the rest of the album. On the former, Auerbach coaxes a primal howl out of his guitar as he recounts running into an old flame who doesn't recognize him because of the titular affliction. (If that's not a bluesworthy lament, I don't know what is.) And the boys clean up their act on the Kinks cover, turning in a loping, warm, alt-countryish tune. (Add the Black Keys to the growing list of garage/blues-centric artists who recognize the influence of Ray Davies [see also Holly Golightly].)

Critical praise has been showered on Rubber Factory and deservedly so. Auerbach and Carney are smart musicians who understand and love the blues to the point where they've internalized it and made it something all their own while still honoring their forebears. And if that's too heavy a reason for you, take heart in the fact that Rubber Factory is a fun album: After all, one sings the blues to chase the blues away."(review from popmatters.com)