Customer Reviews

No Tellin Lies / 3.V

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

3.v is probably Zebra's best album, although it's hard to go wrong with their first album. What's wrong with this collection is the 2nd album, No Tellin' Lies. Mostly made up of older material, it's not a great album. There are 2 or 3 good tracks on No Tellin' Lies. The best one is Bears.

That said, 3.V is practically flawless. While the first album was a nice hard rock (probably heavy metal at the time) with nice hooks, and the 2nd was an ok hard rock album with few hooks, 3.v is Zebra reborn as a hard rocking pop outfit.

The album went absolutely nowhere, but after 16 years, the album holds up very nicely.

Given the price of this set, it's well worth the purchase, though you might want to rip it, and remove some of NTL's weaker tracks.

4.5 stars for 3.v
2.5 stars for NTL

I don't usually rate these things but this product is being unfairly moved down by the 1-star rater. It's true that "No Tellin Lies" is an average album, but "3.V" is simply perfect, and one of the most overlooked creations of the 80's. Anyone who likes hard, melodic rock would find it essential.

This one that features their 2nd and 3rd albums, and the price is nice, and it was smart to leave them at a low price, I can't see the average person taking a chance if this was 20 bucks, can you? And I can get the song again "You're Only Losing Your Heart" (on 3.V), I used to have the cassette of 3.V, but it is long gone. I do have "In Black and White", and many of the songs here are on that one also, along with quite a few from the debut, but Zebra doesn't have a huge official catalog; so it's not really that difficult with the price of these to be a completist for the bands music in this case.

The band has always intrigued me in the style of the singer, his high pitched sound, along with a hard rock sound and melody also seems to be the late 70's meeting an early 80's alternative rock sound. It may not be an complex and progressive as a band like Rush, or Yes, but they seemed to have carved out a niche in the rock world over the years. You don't hear alot of people say that Zebra is one of their favorite bands, but perhaps they need to take another listen to this classic stuff and rethink it?

Zebra is a band to me that really I like just about every one of their songs. Probably the only song I don't like and skip each time is the "La-La Song", and it still bothers me that that one is on the greatest hits instead of "You're Only Losing Your Heart".

these two albums were not available on cd in the past; now they finally are and they're affordable too.

FYI all ye zebraheads.....
zebra's NEW CD, 'V', is out july 8, 2003. check out 'thedoor.com' for some sound bytes.
these guys can STILL ROCK!

Of all the classic American melodic rock bands, I think Zebra is probably the most unfairly overlooked and underrated. They had this great Led Zeppelin meets Cheap Trick sound centered on Randy Jackson's (no not the American Idol guy) signature vocal style. The band's self-titled debut gets the most attention, but their later albums are just as impressive.

This great 2-on-1 reissue collects the band's second and third albums (1984's No Tellin' Lies and 1986's 3.V) on one CD for the price of a single disc. The individual albums were all but impossible to find on CD, so this reissue is a great deal.

If you're into the 80's melodic rock sound (Angel, Starz, Moxy, Journey, Styx, Foreigner, etc.) you definitely need to check out Zebra. The debut is the best starting point, but the No Tellin' Lies/3.V reissue is also a good choice.

NOTE: This reissue isn't always in circulation. Prior to the 2007 reissue, the 2001 edition was selling quite high on the secondary market. My recommendation is to grab this while it's still available at a normal retail price.

NOTE 2: The item description says that the albums have been remastered, but I don't think that is the case. There's no mention of remastering in the liner notes, and it really doesn't sound remastered to me. Then again, I'm not one of those audiophile types, so maybe I'm missing something.

Zebra is the most under-rated band of recent times! All there recordings deserve 5 Stars ! These three guys deserve a listen from anyone who likes hard rock.Buy anything from this band.

Zebra's 2nd release No Tellin Lies was a great cd. Offered up here with 3.v is a no brainer to buyers.. Awesome package for a great price. A steal for a band that never got their due.. Randy Jackson is still brilliant! If anyone out there has a chance to see Zebra or Randy when he is solo should not miss it. They/He are great live. Its too bad these discs didnt sell better because the talent was there in droves.

Classic Zebra from the 80's on one CD. If you like their first album, you will like this one as well.

Zebra should have made it to the big time. Their first album was great. These follow up albums were good. Just listen to "Bears" and you will be hooked on Zebra.

I bought these when they came out, on vinyl. No Tellin' Lies was a great album, but the CD version was only from Japan for a long time. (Yeah, I've got it.) I bought this for a friend, to share the joy. So you know I'm a fan. That doesn't help you. Rather than tell you how great Zebra is (I like 'em), let me give you a picture of what they sound like.

Zebra is an 80s band, loosely kicked into the hair-metal category. That was really a pretty broad category - it included everything from AC/DC and Van Halen to Great White, L.A. Guns, Iron Maiden, even WASP and Faster Pussycat. But that's not so helpful; Zebra doesn't sound anything like WASP, AC/DC or L.A. Guns. Their music is fast-paced and melodic, a bit heavy on the synth/cymbals but lots of strong guitar and drum, with smooth vocals. On the production scale, with early Anthrax being "none" and Jefferson Starship being "overkill", Zebra was a bit more polished than Great White or Van Halen with Sammy in it, but only just. The "drive" of the music with that smoothness is like some Iron Maiden - "Run To The Hills", "Wasted Years" or "Can I Play With Madness" for example - excepting the extra synth and narrower dynamic range in Zebra. By dynamic range, I mean that Zebra's music is mostly at one volume level, kind of like Slade, which was very unusual for the genre back then. (Now it's more common, but they don't write the music that way now, where as Slade and Zebra did.) Iron Maiden uses loudness and softness very effectively; Zebra didn't really use them at all, partly because the synth and production-echo backfilled where there might otherwise have been lulls.

The songs have a strong blues influence, but primarily they have fantastic hooks and sounds. Again, more like Great White or Whitesnake, perhaps Led Zeppelin. If you remember Orion or Vixen, they slotted well into that more pop-metal category well.

So what you get with these albums is a bunch of extremely fun, easy to listen to songs. Not a bad song in the bunch. (Well, one. Bears. Poetic license on my part.) This is a GREAT listen, of driving smooth perhaps slightly overproduced well written rock.