British rock music in the mid to late 60's is a very well tread area of music. From the Kinks to the Beatles, this era of music has been documented and held up to lofty heights again and again, but unfortunately (at least until recently) one of this era's finest LP's was left unappreciated. This album of course, is the subject of this review, the sophomore LP from The Zombies, a group that wasn't a wholly unsuccessful group in their time, but they were unfairly stiffed when it came to their masterwork, the front-to-back masterpiece that is Odessy and Oracle.
This LP, in my honest opinion, deserves to be placed alongside its contemporaries as a pillar of British pop and psychedelic music. This album not only has the songwriting chops and even some suitably political subject matter, such as on the depressing "Butchers Tale", but this album also also possesses an attitude that was sorely missing from other huge groups at the time, that of the macabre.
Fitting, that the bands name now brings to mind the image of a shambling humanoid, because their music on a lot of key points on this LP, but notably the closer "Time Of The Season" is a fitting soundtrack to a late night excursion into the realm of the spooky.
Of course, none of the subject matter here has any actual basis in horror (aside from the images of war on the aforementioned "Butchers Tale") the sound of this album, from the organs to the whisper soft lead vocals, all lend this album an almost ghostly quality at some points. However, this album isn't all dreary, for instance, we get the fantastically hopeful and bright "This Will Be Our Year" which is one of my favorite songs of all time.
Other highlights include "I Want Her She Wants Me", "Friends Of Mine" and "Care For Cell 44" which kicks this whole album off perfectly, with it acting as almost a thesis statement for the entire album. In short, this is an album that deserves way more than it was given back in the day, and I'd argue it still hasn't quite gotten its due to this very day. Classic through and through.
10/10
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