REVIEWS

While we’re waiting for an album of new songs from The Zombies, Craft Recordings has released three classics on vinyl. These are The Zombies, I Love You and R.I.P.

The Zombies have been going strong for the past several years. Fan demand has seen the band touring internationally for many months a year. In late 2015, the band scored a position on six different Billboard album charts with their last studio album, Still Got that Hunger. Then in 2019, The Zombies were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The Zombies were on a trajectory of British Invasion greatness when they first appeared on the global scene in 1964. Their very first 45, “She’s Not There,” reached No. 1 that December in Cashbox, whilst in the U.K. George Harrison gave it “thumbs up” on the BBC music panel show, Juke Box Jury.

Their eponymous album appeared in the U.S. in early 1965; the U.K. version Begin Here trailed by two months. This 2020 mono rerelease kicks off with the legendary “She’s Not There,” with Chris White’s signature bass line, Rod Argent’s cool electric piano, Paul Atkinson’s guitar tracing the keyboard line, Hugh Grundy’s drums rising like distant thunder, and Colin Blunstone’s velvet vocals searching for a girl who has so thoroughly vanished she may as well have beamed up to her native planet.

Coming on 56 years and having endured the test of time, The Zombies remains a knockout debut album with seven self-penned songs (plus one from the producer, as was tradition in those days) and four cover tracks — ranging from jazzy pop with an edge through R&B and soul. Led by electric piano, rather than guitar, and complex in structure and moods, Zombies music was different; intricate; but you could dance to it. The Zombies was an achievement by a fledging group that had gone professional just months before. However, they had the double-barrel advantage of two terrific songwriters in Rod Argent and Chris White. The songs on here include their hit “Tell Her No,” “It’s Alright With Me,” showcasing Atkinson’s guitar’s counterpoint melody hook, and the timeless covers “Summertime,” and “You’ve Really Got a Hold On Me” paired with “Bring It on Home to Me.”

If The Zombies possessed two songwriters, why did they include covers in this album? For one thing, it was the record companies who decided what songs were released on albums. In those days, in the hit-single-driven market, liked them.”