A great “forgotten” album of the late sixties. Listening to “Odessey
and Oracle” you really wonder why The Zombies didn't make it. Why aren't
they up there with the likes of The Beatles, The Kinks or The Who ?
Maybe it's something to do with the name. Zombies conjures up images
of the meanest form of garage rock whereas what we have here is delicately
manufactured British pop. Then again other groups have made it big with
rather weak titles. The Beatles and The Beach Boys to name but two. We're
so used to the Beatles we don't realise that the band name is a bit lightweight.
The image that the title “The Beach Boys”
conjures up is equally a thousand miles away from the introspective genius
of Brian Wilson. It'll just have to be one
of the unsolved mysteries of rock’n’roll history.
Musically, there is a bit of Beatles along with a good dose of Beach
Boys on the album. “Care of Cell 44”, the album's first track, shows
a debt to the Beach boys whereas “A Rose for
Emily” is thematically not unlike “Eleanor Rigby”. Like the Beatles and
The
Beach Boys you get the feeling that everything fits perfectly, the
vocal harmonies and different musical layers have been carefully planned
and work brilliantly together. But the Zombies are not an imitation of
these other bands, they have their very own musical identity and that being
so, especially given everyone's fascination for original sixties British
pop, it is very surprising the Zombies don't get more attention.
The record makes an innovative use of sometimes complex vocal harmonies,
not unlike the experiments of Brian Wilson and is imaginative throughout
in its use of orchestration. However the record is neither overproduced
or overloaded with orchestration. At times the songs drop down to very
simple but efficient patterns, repeated chords on a piano or a delicate
melody line. The Zombies knew how to use the spaces between the notes as
well as the notes themselves…
I’d say the sound of “Odessey and Oracle” is more delicate, has more
fragility than that of the Beatles. They could be called a British version
of the Beach Boys but that would be reducing
their contribution to music to the world of another band. Thematically,
the album is fairly close to some of the Kinks’ work with a certain understated
sadness and melancholy. The songs are powerful and evocative of a certain
Britishness. It is a very melancholy, sorrowful record with themes of loneliness,
lost love, suffering where the only release is the power of dreams. There
is something culturally British about the lonely nostalgia of “Beechwood
Park” for example or that of “A rose for Emily” for that matter. As in
many British cultural texts, man is seen as a victim, almost reduced to
passivity in the face of the powers that control his fate. He cannot decide
his own fate but must suffer the cruel blows of a hostile reality. In “Butcher's
Tale” for example, a working man is exposed to the horrors of warfare by
uncaring authorities. There are several songs along the same themes in
British rock of the time. Unsurprisingly, The Kinks struck a similar note
on their 1969 concept album named “Arthur”. The Pretty Things covered the
same theme on their concept album “S.F. Sorrow” in 1968. “Butcher's Tale”
is one of the most powerful and moving songs of the genre. But despair
is especially poignant on songs dealing with unrequited or unsuccessful
love. In “Maybe After He's Gone” the singer looks back to a state of grace
from which he has fallen, that in which he was loved by the one he loves
and hangs all his desperate hope on this loved one coming back to him.
“Brief Candles”, a bit like “A rose for Emily” is about life going by in
loneliness. The protagonists, a man and a woman, sit alone in separate
locations thinking of what could of happened instead of their parting.
The song contains a note of hope, for the “Brief Candles” in question are
sweet memories, however the main idea is one of the loneliness of existence.
Even songs like “Friends of mine” with their seemingly happy tone and upbeat
pace reveal loneliness and sadness. When the singer gets depressed he thinks
of friends of his who are supposedly very much in love and that supposedly
cheers him up and gives him faith in life. This is very cleverly done:
by stating one thing he is also very clearly putting over something else:
that he is on his own.
Another example is of course the opening song, “Care of Cell 44”. The
song resembles a happy beach boys track and the imagery is welcoming until
we realise that the singer is addressing his loved who is finally being
released from prison after having served a lengthy sentence.
The album is truly a masterpiece. Dare I say it ? Oh, go on then ! Yes,
it's a bit like a British “Pet Sounds”. There, I said it.