ALBUM REVIEW : Hot Chops, Smug Humor; **; Z; “Shampoohorn”; <i> Barking Pumpkin</i>
Little doubt about the lineage: The pyrotechnic licks, the smug humor--Ahmet and Dweezil are Zappas through and through. But beyond free-thinker rhetoric and hot chops, the young brothers don’t really have much to say, and even then it’s not much new. Couldn’t they think of any more original attacks than “Jesus Clone” or the macho-rocker mocker “Did I Mention It Was Huge”?
Despite wry wit and Dweezil’s encyclopedia of guitar tricks, this is more like Rush with a sense of humor than late papa Frank’s “Hot Rats.” And that’s often perilously close to the kind of slick, sterile rock that Frank delighted in chewing up and spitting out as ruthless parody.
New albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).
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