BY WILLIAM LENNON
It’s not crazy to mention The Zombies in the same breath as The Beach Boys or The Kinks. Maybe a missing link between starry-eyed ‘60s pop and Goth rock lives in Odessey & Oracle (misspelling intended), their last album before splitting up. In Odessey & Oracle, the saccharine fun of The Monkees or early Beatles mingles with something darker. Though its arrangements are simple, it still sounds startlingly ahead of its time. The album was so successful that even after The Zombies broke up, others posed as them and toured the United States to cash in on their success. (One of the groups, known by some as “The Texas Zombies,” contained future members of ZZ Top.) Thirty years after their heyday, The Zombies rose again in 1998 and are still kicking nearly two decades later. Don’t miss this rare chance to hear their groundbreaking sound in honor of Odessey & Oracle’s 50th anniversary.
