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**Zebra - Zebra ★★★★☆**

The story ends where most rock tales do – in disappointment and dissolution. By the mid-1980s, Zebra had galloped into the sunset, their promising career derailed by the cruel mathematics of the music industry and the fickle tastes of MTV-era audiences. But before Randy Jackson, Felix Hanemann, and Guy Gelso hung up their instruments for good (well, mostly good – they've reunited sporadically over the decades), they crafted one of the most criminally underrated hard rock albums of the early 1980s.

Today, Zebra's 1983 self-titled debut exists in that peculiar purgatory reserved for albums that should have been massive but weren't. It's the kind of record that gets name-dropped by guitar gods in interviews, the deep cut that separates the casual rock fans from the true believers. While their contemporaries were either going new wave or doubling down on hair metal excess, Zebra galloped down a different path entirely – one that led straight back to the golden age of power trios.

The album's crown jewel remains "Tell Me What You Want," a seven-minute opus that showcases everything magical about this New Orleans trio. Jackson's guitar work channels the best of Jimmy Page's mystical wanderings while maintaining a distinctly American swagger, and his vocals soar with the kind of earnest emotion that would become increasingly rare as the decade progressed. It's the song that should have made them superstars, complete with a guitar solo that practically demands air guitar accompaniment and a chorus that burrows into your brain like a benevolent parasite.

But Zebra wasn't a one-trick pony. "Who's Behind the Door" kicks off the album with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, Gelso's drums pounding out a rhythm that could wake the dead while Hanemann's bass provides the kind of foundation that lesser power trios can only dream about. The track perfectly encapsulates the band's approach – take the basic template of Led Zeppelin's heavy blues rock, strip away the pretension, and inject it with enough Southern-fried attitude to make it distinctly their own.

"Wait Until the Summer's Gone" finds the band in a more contemplative mood, proving they could handle dynamics as well as any of their more celebrated peers. It's a track that builds and breathes, showcasing Jackson's underrated abilities as both a songwriter and a vocalist. Meanwhile, "Don't Walk Away" delivers the kind of arena-ready anthem that should have soundtracked a thousand teenage summers, complete with a guitar riff that's equal parts crunchy and melodic.

The album's genius lies in its restraint. In an era when more was always more, Zebra understood the power of space and dynamics. These weren't songs designed to bludgeon listeners into submission; they were crafted to seduce, to draw you in with their blend of technical proficiency and emotional honesty. Jackson's guitar tone throughout the album is a thing of beauty – warm, fat, and dripping with sustain, it's the sound of vintage Marshall stacks pushed to their sweet spot.

The trio's origins in the New Orleans club scene served them well, giving them a tightness and chemistry that many studio-constructed bands lacked. They'd spent years honing their craft in sweaty venues, learning how to make three instruments sound like six, how to fill every corner of a room with their sound. That experience bleeds through every track on this album, from the locked-in rhythm section work to Jackson's ability to seamlessly shift from rhythm to lead without ever leaving a hole in the mix.

What makes Zebra's story particularly tragic is how close they came to breaking through. The album charted respectably, MTV gave them some rotation, and the critics were largely positive. But in the rapidly shifting landscape of early-80s rock, being very good wasn't enough – you needed to be undeniably great or perfectly positioned. Zebra was the former but not the latter, arriving just as the music industry was beginning its love affair with synthesizers and perfectly coiffed hair metal bands.

Still, for those willing to dig beyond the obvious classics of the era, Zebra's debut remains a treasure trove of expertly crafted hard rock. It's proof that sometimes the best albums are the ones that slip through the cracks, waiting patiently for listeners smart enough to appreciate their particular brand of magic.