Black Zarak - Nobody Panic

Hear The Track Here

The key to understanding (if that is the right word to apply here) the musical outpourings of the entity known as Black Zarak is their mission statement - if again that is the right word to use here. 'We like to play everything live with little or no planning' they state baldly, and believe me they are not kidding around here. I ripped them a new critical butt when I reviewed (and shredded) their 'hit single' Delightmare (February 2006) which I found anything but. A loud, painful and very unfulfilling experience all round and one - I suspect - Thomas J (one half of BZ) pulled out especially for me. As he is well aware by now, my tolerance for the more experimental stuff is generally quite low.

The really weird thing is that I know for a fact that Thomas J makes this music because this is what HE wants to hear, so it automatically follows that it may not be the same for you. Some of his work I really like (The Men From San Deigo especially) but since I have reviewed four Black Zarak tracks by now and am still none the wiser, I just have to believe it's just not 'my thing'. Featuring live guitar and sax, Nobody Panic is a better Black Zarak track than the lasy one they presented to me and that's probably because I do have a marked leaning to jazz and this is jazz in the old fashioned sense.

Like all tracks of this type there is a serious amount of musical noddling going on. The guitar and sax in particular play off each other very well and I can well imagine hearing this played in some gloomy doomy student hang out, the audience's heads nodding as if they were all joined at the hip. Seriously though, there are some nice touches about Nobody Panic, along with the usual Black Zarak mayhem, although you may have to give it more than a few plays for that to fully expose itself. For my money this gets considerably better and much tighter after the two minute mark, and it become something I'd look forward to hearing again. I'm not sure I could say the same about the mad dash for the exits in the outro but at least it's different. Interesting for sure, but it definitely won't suit some people who think that both jazz and experimental are both abominations.

A step in the right direction, at least from my point of view.