Witch

The band’s fifth album would be the last with founding member and vocalist Jagari, and also marked the end of an era for the band and for Zamrock. The tracks are sprawling, LSD tinged workouts, mellower than the fuzzy garage rock sounds of their first albums, and african rhythms, vocal styles, and Afrobeat grooves are more prevalent. Overall, the album feels more melancholic than their previous ones, and it could perhaps be a reflection of the seismic changes going on around them: post-independence optimism had declined, the country was well on its way to plunging into a deep economic crisis, and an increasingly authoritarian regime had been curtailing people’s freedoms. Soon after the record’s release, Jagari left the band to become a teacher, and the band fundamentally changed direction before disbanding a few years later.