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Different Game COOKING VINYL 8/10

Harmonies and songcraft endure, with a touch of Steely Dan.

By Nick Hasted

Stillgame: The Zombies in2023 with Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone centre and second right

ALEX LAKE

THE ZOMBIES were outliers even in the futuristic surge of the ’60s. Rod Argent wrote their debut, smash single “She’s Not There”, after digging up John Lee Hooker’s “No One Told Me” from a pile of blues records for his lyrical spark, but drew its unusual chords from Bryan Hyland’s Bachbased “Sealed With A Kiss”. Its central conceit, meanwhile, conjuring a girl by her absence, was worthy of American songbook masters such as the Gershwins.

The other hallowed achievement of their four-year professional run, Odessey And Oracle (1968), was dressed up in a psychedelic sleeve and title, but occupied its own realm of quiet, inward thoughts and chamber arrangements. The haunted pastoral dream of bassist Chris White’s “Beechwood Park” came closest to the season’s altered states, as Argent’s spare, hook-laden, suggestively titled “Time Of The Season” attached itself to the times to huge US success. Though they had been enthused by rock’n’roll, the closest their keystone work got to its earthy rush was the ecstatic chorus harmonies of “Care Of Cell 44”, topped by Colin Blunstone’s sweet, yearning voice, itself innocent and pure in the late ’60s tumult. Their essential self was soft and reflective, touching on older songwriting verities.

Famously splitting a year before “Time Of The Season” became their second standard, they stubbornly refused to reform to exploit it. Blunstone briefly joined an insurance firm before continuing his singing career, and Argent’s eponymous band entered the ’70s with the harder-hitting, White co-written “Hold Your Head Up”. Belying their name, they buried The Zombies, one brief, Argent-less reunion apart, for 36 years. “I always felt there’s been a bit of mystery to The Zombies,” Blunstone believes. “I don’t quite understand our career path. Rod and I always concentrated on the future, so when the two of us got together in 1999, we didn’t call ourselves The Zombies, and hardly played any Zombies tracks. We thought that everything had been forgotten. It was a wonderful surprise to realise how fondly the Zombies repertoire was remembered.”

After resuming the Zombies name in 2004, White and original drummer Hugh Grundyoccasionallyreturnfor Odessey AndOracle gigs, but Argent and Blunstone have been the constants during a 21st century which has enjoyed twice as many Zombies albums as the 20th. This fourth reunion record was taped mainly live, at something like ’60s pace.

Confirming their philosophy of looking forward, DifferentGame rarely recalls their old sound, instead suggesting more intriguing ’70s comparisons, most especially Steely Dan. “Run Away”’s jazzy chords, hazy, wasted mood and lush West Coast sophistication (conjured in Argent’s home studio in a Hampshire village) sees Blunstone’s usual breathy loveliness grow more sardonic and desperate, hinting at both Donald Fagen and Michael McDonald. “Steely Dan are a great favourite of all the band,” Blunstone acknowledges, “and there has always been a jazz element to Zombies music. If you listen to the keyboard solo in ‘She’s Not There’, it’s very unusual for the time. Rod has always been incredibly interested in jazz, and that goes for the whole band.”