Zabu - 1972 - My Coffin's Ready

Zabu

1972

My Coffin's Ready

01. Yellow Girl 3:58

02. Doctor Moonshine 3:42

03. Coffin's Ready 8:27

04. Subversion Blues 5:26

05. Informer Blues 4:10

06. Silent Angel 5:10

07. Ice-Pick Blues 1:39

Backing Vocals – Serge Grünberg (tracks: 1, 5)

Bass – Edouard Magnani (tracks: 1, 2, 3), Richard Siltich (tracks: 6, 7)

Drums – B.B. Brutus (tracks: 7), Christian Vander (tracks: 6), Michel Santangelli (tracks: 1, 2, 3, 5)

Electric Piano – Lahouari Benne Djadi (tracks: 2, 4)

Flute, Voice [Roars Of Laughter] – Eric Langeberteaux (tracks: 4)

Guitar [Lead & Rhythm], Bells – Dominique Frideloux

Guitar [Lead, Slide, Rhythm] – Marc Perru (tracks: 1, 2, 5, 6)

Lead Vocals – Zabu

Organ – Teddy Lasry (tracks: 6)

Piano – Francis Moze (tracks: 5)

Rhythm Guitar – Zabu (tracks: 3, 7)

Saxophone – Jeff Seffer (tracks: 5, 6), Teddy Lasry (tracks: 5)

Producer – Laurent Thibault

I have just come across this fine French blues album – though you wouldn’t know it’s French – performed by Lucien Zabuski who used to be the vocalist for Magma, though I think he left before their first release. Not sure; still learning.

For the vocal think Edgar Broughton and you’d have a perfect reference point for the sound in its growl and emotion. The songs are basically a rock blues with some soulful singing, but also generic rather than original – not that this matters at all because that is what you should expect and want if listening to this: and Zabu’s vocal is superb in that style already noted.

Track five Silent Angel is a delightful exception, a jazz number enlivened by the saxophone playing and Zabu’s more expressive vocal, here sounding like Roger Chapman. The French band is excellent [and if you want the full cast list, check it out here], but it is the sax soloing that plays wonderfully off the voice, though I’m not sure if the lead is Teddy Lasry or Yochk’o Seffer [and there is a Laurent Grangier who plays too], and I like the guitar work woven amongst the saxophone, presumably played by Dominique Frideloux.

Sixth Subversion Blues is another song sticking its head above the rest, a gothic/horror riff [you just recognise it, don’t you?] and the manic shrieks and ringing bell add a further sense of menace – a song that really must be used is any one of the zombie films/series so popular at the moment: The Waking Dead meets Zabu.

The album closes on a punk amalgam of country and rock, Yellow Girl, the opening bluegrass fiddle disappearing as a sound as quickly as it has started. What a tease.