5. scrap224; ZZ Top- LA FUTURA

This is a Journey into Sound.....

First off, I do not own this album on vinyl. I probably never will. Although I dig the rock/blues/southern rock that ZZ Top is know primarily for, this new album has elements of all that plus a lot of the synth work they became accustomed to back in the 80's.
La Futura was released on September 11, 2012. Four of the new tracks—“I Gotsta Get Paid,” “Chartreuse,” “Consumption,” and “Over You”—debuted June 5, 2012 as an iTunes-only collection titled Texicali, which met with strong sales and glowing reviews. Music Radar summed up the tunes as “ZZ Top crankin’ up some fresh, vital roadhouse blues.” Another track, "Flyin' High,” appropriately made its world premiere in space, when the then-unfinished song played on board a Soyuz spacecraft during its launch to the International Space Station in June 2011 at the request of NASA astronaut Mike Fossum, a long-time ZZ Top fan and friend. This is when I first became aware of the album.
its first in nine years, following Mescalero. La Futura was recorded at The Foambox Recordings in Houston, Texas. The album title and album art were released on ZZ Top's home page on August 3 at 11:45 a.m. The album contains 10 tracks. “We thought long and hard about what this album should be,” Gibbons says in a press release. “We wanted to recall the directness of our early stuff but not turn our backs on contemporary technology. The result of this melting of the past and the present is, of course, La Futura.”
The track listing is;
1. 'I Gosta Get Paid'
2. ‘Chartreuse’
3. ‘Consumption’
4. ‘Over You’
5. ‘Heartache in Blue’
6. ‘I Don’t Wanna Lose, Lose, You’
7. ‘Flyin’ High’
8. ‘It’s Too Easy Manana’
9. ‘Big Shiny Nine’
10. ‘Have a Little Mercy’
There is of course a Best Buy version that contains two bonus tracks which are;
11."Threshold of a Breakdown"
12."Drive by Lover"
I cannot tell a lie. This album is not ZZ Top's best work in my opinion. It to me at times is rough. Seems over produced. By the way La Futura was produced by the one and only Rick Rubin.
Make no mistake, this is clearly a ZZ Top album, it's them in all their guitar rock glory. I do recommend it. I do enjoy it. "The Future" is upon us, & a classic band we all know & love has reminded all of us of that.