Album number three from
the Texas Tornados
(and the last until a short-lived reunion four years down the line) followed the same path as their first two entries -- which is to say, if it was fun and came somewhere from the great state of Texas, you'll find a taste of it here. With
"Guacamole,"
Augie Meyers
finally penned a fitting follow-up to
"(Hey Baby) Que Paso"
;
Freddy Fender
shows off his strong but silky pipes on the up-tempo
"A Mover El Bote"
and the weepy
"I'm Trying"
Flaco Jimenez
celebrates both the accordion and the bottle on the heartbroken
"Ando Muy Borracho"
; and
Doug Sahm
serves up a lot of
rock
and a little
reggae
on the title cut and
"La Grande Vida."
While the
Tex-Mex
influences dominate more strongly on
Hangin' on by a Thread
than they had on the first two albums, the album also sounds a bit more cohesive as a result, and
Sahm
's more
-oriented material still displays a strong sense of the aural and cultural cross pollination that makes Texas music (and
) so great. While it hardly sounds like a final gesture, curtain calls were not what this band was about, and
did make a better final chapter to
' story than their 1996 reunion album,
Four Aces
. ~ Mark Deming