CD Review. The Zombies - Odessey & Oracle Revisited

7:47am Monday 14th July 2008

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When The Zombies decided to perform their seminal album Odessey & Oracle' live - in it's entirety - for the first tine, 40 years after it was released, there was a certain amount of trepidation.

For one thing, one of the original band had sadly passed away and two others - Chris White and Hugh Grundy - had hardly played live in all that time. But that feeling soon disappeared. "As soon as we started I knew The Zombies' magic was there." Said keyboard player Rod Argent, who along with singer Colin Blunstone, had been performing some of the bands' music in their own shows.

The show was recorded in March 2008 at Shepherds Bush Empire in front of an audience that included such luminaries as Robert Plant and Paul Weller (who had bought tickets for all three nights of the shows as it was this cult album that inspired him - and many others).

Not only was the album, which included tracks like Care Of Cell 44' (the track that Dave Grohl claimed changed his life), A Rose For Emily' and Beechwood Park', performed; but also the pick of The Zombies canon. Tell Her No', Time Of The Season' and She's Not There' were played faultlessly and some of Blunstone and Argent's solo works were given an airing, like Say You Don't Mind' and Hold Your Head Up'.

The attention to detail is phenomenal as Argent even bought a Victorian pedal organ to make the sound as near as possible to the original album. "it worked", he told me. "When we played a mix of the concert with a copy of the album, we couldn't tell which was which."

The music, as to be expected from such fine musicians, is exemplary and the vocal harmonies are spot on.

If you weren't there on that March evening to witness this great event, it is a shame, but this CD ensures that you can almost believe that you were there.

The Zombies - back from the un-dead.