NGOZI FAMILY - Day Of Judgement
Friday, October 10, 2014 at 02:35PM
soundscapes in Reissue, World

The utterly unique combination of metallic/proto-punky fuzzed-out guitar, crudely funky drumming, and charmingly awkward English singing that was '70s Zam-rock has electrified these ears for some time now, in no small part due to the efforts of Now-Again, who have now released what might be the most fun and exciting record of that prime era of Zambian bands that we've yet had the chance to be hipped to!

"Day of Judgement was released in 1976, the same year as other now-famous Zamrock albums, from WITCH's Lazy Bones!! to Rikki Ililonga’s Zambia to Musi-O-Tunya’s Give Love To Your Children, all reissued on Now-Again, but Day Of Judgement sounds like none of its counterparts. Part of that stems from its frenzied primitivism, the Ngozi Family's attempt to overcome a lack of musical acumen with sheer force of will, [...] a full-on aural assault that sounds as wild nearly forty years after its release as it must have sounded in the developing Zamrock landscape from which it emerged. We listen to this anachronistic yet prescient album now as a wholly original, completely unpredictable album in line with those from mavericks from across the world – from the Ramones to the Sex Pistols to Death. Though it’s been over two decades since Paul Ngozi’s passing, his voice and vision still seem exciting, powerful, unique, unvarnished, new." - Now-Again

Article originally appeared on Soundscapes - 572 College Street Toronto (http://www.soundscapesmusic.com/).
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