T-BIRDS: SPIT-SHINE

“TUFF ENUFF.” The Fabulous Thunderbirds. Epic. Not hardly. Other than the title track, which finds the Fab T-Birds sounding so much like fellow Texans ZZ Top that you can almost hear the beards growing in the background, the rest of the band’s fifth album scarcely gets within kissin’ distance of the whole stanky pork ‘n’ grits-krieg these cats are capable of in clubland. For all producer Dave Edmunds’ multi-track coats of spit-shine chromium gloss, Nick Lowe did a better job last time out, simply by giving this most unpretentious li’l white blues band some much-needed personality in the way of well-chosen outside material.