Review: The Zombies' 'In the Beginning'

The Zombies released two of the best hit singles of the British Invasion and one of the best LPs of all time, but their career on wax was weirdly sporadic. After putting out those two smashes—“She’s Not There” and “Tell Her No”—in 1964, and their eponymous debut album the following year, The Zombies did not manage to make another substantial hit single or album until 1968 when they finally put out Odessey and Oracle (recorded in 1967). The 45 it yielded—“Time of the Season”—didn’t even get any radio action until 1969. Yet the band did record a fair share of material in between those epochal bookends.  

That makes organizing The Zombies’ collective works into a sensible and comprehensible package a bit of a challenge, which is highlighted by the fact that the band’s British and American labels are going different routes to commemorate their 55^th Anniversary. In the UK, Demon Records is releasing a five-LP set called In the Beginning. Naturally, it includes the two proper albums: The Zombies and Odessey and Oracle. To tidy up the remaining singles, EP tracks, soundtrack items, and outtakes, Demon is resurrecting the obscure 1969 compilation Early Days and a scrapped one from the same year called R.I.P., as well as a new set titled Continue Here. Although albums following a more chronologically consistent format might have resulted in more authentic facsimiles of the kinds of albums The Zombies could have put out between their debut and Odessey, this ends up a perfectly fine solution to the compiling problem (despite that ugly drawing on the cover of Early Days). Unlike its U.S. counterpart—Varèse Sarabande’s oddly named The Complete Studio Recordings, which is missing “Road Runner” and “Sticks and Stones” from the first album— In the Beginning has versions of everything The Zombies put out during that decade and there is not a sub-par track in the bunch.

While the delicately psychedelic, eccentrically themed, gorgeously arranged Odessey and Oracle is naturally the best thing here, each of the other albums is very fine in itself. The Zombies is a great debut album—a sensual blend of jazzy pop and surprisingly tough R&B for a band known for their drizzly electric piano runs and Colin Blundstone’s breathy vocals. Early Days and Continue Here basically follow that format, though the material comes from a wider span of years. Between these two discs you will find many of the great, mostly commercially unsuccessful singles The Zombies slipped into the mid-sixties. Along with the hit “Tell Her No”, such delectables as “I Love You”, “I Want You Back Again”, “Is This the Dream?”, “Just Out of Reach”, and “Leave Me Be”, the entirety self-titled 1964 E.P., and all the songs they contributed to Otto Preminger’s 1966 mystery Bunny Lake Is Missing are shuffled together on these two albums. The presentation is arbitrary but still very listenable.

R.I.P. also has an air of the random because it covers even wider chronological territory, but it is one of the more fascinating discs because of its odd history. After the release of Odessey and Oracle, The Zombies briefly reunited to record six new tracks and layer overdubs on six old ones. The intention was to put it out as a grand farewell titled R.I.P., but the project was shelved when lead-Zombie Rod Argent decided to focus on his new band, Argent. Even though the new tracks offer a different sound because things like “She Loves the Way They Love Her” and “I Could Spend the Day” rock a bit harder than the usual Zombie fare and Argent handles more lead vocals than velvet-voiced Colin Blundstone, they’re all good, and “Imagine the Swan” and “Smokey Day” are as haunting as the band’s best. The addition of strings to older stuff such as “If It Don’t Work Out” and “Walking in the Sun” works because the band had an adult, lush sound from the very beginning (compare these lilting orchestral overdubs to the bleatingly inappropriate ones forced onto Emotions against The Pretty Things’ wishes).

Although Demon used digital sources for In the Beginning, all five albums sound good. My analog edition of Odessey and Oracle from Big Beat is still going to be my go-to copy of that classic, but Demon’s digital disc actually sounds fairly comparable. The discs offer a mix of mixes with The Zombies and Continue Here in mono, R.I.P. in stereo, and Early Days and Odessey and Oracle offering a blend of both (the latter is entirely stereo except for a mono version of “This Will Be Our Year” with somewhat ostentatious brass overdubs). All vinyl is dead flat and dead quiet. The packaging is pretty too with multicolored vinyl, sturdy covers, and thick inner sleeves printed with period news clippings in lieu of a booklet. Fab!