Reissue\/repress: 16-06-2023<\/p>\n
Guitarist\/vocalist Paul Ngozi\u2019s debut album \u2013 under the name Ngozi Family – is an important record: not just in the Zamrock genre, but in the global rock canon. Day of Judgement is an introduction to the most intense, raw and inimitable golden era Zamrock recorded, as it paved the way for a dozen Paul Ngozi and Ngozi Family releases (the most famous being drummer Chrissy Zebby Tembo\u2019s My Ancestors) that straddled the line between funk and punk, of driving hard rock and Zambian folk melodies and rhythms.
\nDay of Judgement was released in 1976, the same year as other, now famous, Zamrock albums, from WITCH\u2019s Lazy Bones!! to Rikki Ililonga\u2019s Zambia. But it sounds like none of its counterparts. Part of that stems from its frenzied primitivism, the Ngozi Family\u2019s attempt to overcome a lack of musical acumen with sheer force of will.
\nThat will allowed Paul Ngozi to overcome a humble upbringing to become the most unlikely combination: Zamrock\u2019s most beloved star in its brief but now-well chronicled arc; the only musician to maintain his fame and recording prowess in the dark ages of the \u201980s; an inspiration to not only aging but young Zambians \u2014 and now others, beyond Zambia\u2019s borders.
\nBut one cannot imagine Paul Ngozi without this album, 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 \u2013 from the Ramones to the Sex Pistols to Death. And, though it\u2019s been over two decades since Paul Ngozi\u2019s passing, his voice and vision still seem exciting, powerful, unique, unvarnished, new.<\/p>\n