Z=7L

I am really getting into zeuhl at the moment and is hoovering up zeuhl albums at online auctions and other places. So it was only a matter of time before I bumped into this band and this, their debut album.

Zao has been described as a Magma copy. For me, Z=7L sounds like a mix of Magma and Return To Forever with some Hatfield & The North injected through Nordettes, their female singers. Vocally, Zao is dominated by their female vocalist Mauricia Platon.

This is a more than acceptable debut album. It does comes across as a light-weight album though. What I am missing is the rich textures from the zeuhl genre and the debt of the jazz/fusion genre. Z=7L is somewhere inbetween these genres and is lacking the best of both.

When that is said, this is a good album which makes me wanting to pursue collecting Zao albums.

3 stars