ZZ Top: Tres Hombres Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		0.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

ZZ Top: Tres Hombres Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 8, 2025

It may have been just bit of what is now termed cultural appropriation, but at least the Spanish in the title of this album helped to cement ZZ Top's reputation, and this is the album that more or less put the boys on the map, after two earlier albums that frankly didn't set the world on fire. While it would be actually a little more than a decade after this album's release before the trio would get a Top 10 single with "Legs", this earlier effort shows many of the same swagger-ific approaches to songwriting, and the entire album has an invigorating and energetic ambience.

The album's track list can be seen in the screenshots of the disc menu I've uploaded to accompany this review.

ZZ Top: Tres Hombres Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Once again as with most of the Quadio releases, the video content here is simply the static menu(s) seen in the screenshots I've uploaded to accompany this review. Yet again Rhino is inconsistent in its authoring and this disc does allow changing codecs with the colored buttons on your remote. As can be seen in the screenshots, the colors of the track names change as you cycle through.

ZZ Top: Tres Hombres Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

ZZ Top: Tres Hombres features DTS-HD Master Audio 4.0 and 2.0 options. This is an interesting quad mix, especially when compared to the stereo version. Spaciousness is immediate, as is separation, and several tunes can, for example, have batteries of guitar (both rhythm and lead) emanating from the rear, with percussion and other rhythm instruments placed more toward the front channels, but occasionally I found the instrumental forces to at least slightly overwhelm the vocals, as in Jesus Just Left Chicago. Simply toggling between codecs (which in this case is facilitated by the ability to use the colored buttons on your remote) will reveal how much more discernable the vocals are in the stereo version of that particular tune. A lot of the riff based material tends to offer everything blasting out of all four channels at once when instruments are in unison, but separation can still be evident for things like kick drums or solos.

ZZ Top: Tres Hombres Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

As with every Quadio release I've reviewed, there is no on disc supplemental material. The insert booklet recreates the original album's cover information, while offering the Quadio standby typical verbiage on setup (no pictures of master tapes with this one).

ZZ Top: Tres Hombres Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

This frankly isn't my favorite ZZ Top album, but it's a fun listen that has pretty much nonstop energy and some great playing. The quad mix has immediately noticeable immersive qualities, but I had a few passing qualms with the actual mix, especially in terms of how far forward (or backward, as the case may be) the vocals were in some tunes. Otherwise, though, ZZ Top: Tres Hombres comes Recommended.