Well, I fell for it. In a year of highly touted reunions by everyone from the Pixies to Mission of Burma, I wanted to believe that The Zombies' first album since 1968's psych-pop masterpiece Odessey & Oracle would be a first-class tour de force. "We haven't come together cynically, or to make a buck," songwriter and keyboardist Rod Argent assures us in the liner notes. LIES! Argent and singer Colin Blunstone have been touring together for the past few years, and even released a disc together under their own names, 2002's unremarkable Out of the Shadows, that should have served as a stern warning. But their new record gets the Zombies name, Argent writes, because it has a "group" sound, and because all the songs were written with Blunstone's voice in mind-- presumably including "I Don't Believe in Miracles", originally from Blunstone's 1972 solo record Ennismore, which here gets the 80s soft-rock treatment, "Rose for Emily" piano intro notwithstanding.
It's depressing and embarrassing to talk about the actual music, because to do so reveals not only what happens when preternaturally unhip music geeks age (eep!), but also that I actually listened, critically, for several hours, to this dross. Nevertheless: The album sets abysmally banal lyrics of love ("I get so cold without your flame") and psychedelia ("catch the wind and kiss the sun") atop overwrought 1980s MOR, replete with melodramatic string arrangements. Something about "Wings Against the Sun" reminds me of treacly 1975 mellow-gold hit "Dance With Me" by The Orleans. Opener "In My Mind a Miracle" (how does that jibe with "I Don't Believe in Miracles", anyway?) grooves like Stephen Schwartz's Pippin, without the Bob Fosse choreography. Worse, it includes the following lyric: "In you I found my Odessey & Oracle." I can't follow that.
As a result, I've spent the day listening to better Zombies-related efforts, from dazzling singles like "She's Not There" to Blunstone's solid 1971 solo debut, One Year. That helps me escape from a tune about needing you "like flowers need the rain" ("Together"), which could pass for a lesser Jonathan Richman cut if not for the prog-rock vocals and utter self-importance. But it can't blot out the lyric booklet in front of my eyes: "It's time to move/ It's time to roll/ Feel it in my heart/ Believe it in my soul." Blunstone shows off his prodigious pipes there with some fake soulfulness, while the band attempts what would pass for garage revival if it didn't sound so much like late-period The News (of "Huey Lewis &" fame) fronted by the dude from Dream Theatre. Then there's "Memphis", which goes all out with keyboards fitting for a Peabo Bryson single out of an early 90s Disney flick.
If you've read this far, you fell for the "Zombies reunion" gimmick, too. You should have saved your time for worthier indie-pop efforts, plus figuring out how you can avoid getting this lame when you inevitably grow old, too. If Argent and Blunstone aren't in this for a cynical buck, they've merely lost all aesthetic sense. That happens, I suppose. But I can't help but stare at the cover and wonder why they didn't lose their hair instead.
