The Zombies 50th Anniversary

[(JeffZ)]

The Zombies (or at least Colin Blunstone and Rod Argent) are celebrating the 50th anniversary since first getting together in St. Albans. They have a new album. The title track "Breathe Out, Breathe In" is below. I'm normally pretty leery of older acts doing comeback records but this is really quite good and captures the old Zombies spirit very well. I hope this gets some airplay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4wpHjAk ... r_embedded

[(hallewa)]

Saw Rod Argent on a TV concert a few years ago and was simply amazed how great his singing & playing skills are still. Wow!

[(grygrx)]

Without noticing the 50th anniversary note and having not exposure to the zombies, I clicked on this. I can say with no doubt... it was not what I expecting from a band called the Zombies. It's good to be exposed to things outside your wheelhouse sometimes though!

[(DoubleThink)]

The Zombies were always one of my fave bands. This new release sounds like it's a development of, and progression from, their classic sound. Nice stuff.

[(royclough)]

Not knocking Zombies, liked some of the stuff , loved Let Me Be their second single. They did however acquire something of a cult status (probably incorrect phrase) in essence here in UK they had one top 40 single.

[(JeffZ)]

They were much bigger in the US for some reason...They were on Decca in the UK, so they may have gotten lost in the shuffle there. I know Colin Blunstone did a nice version of Denny Laine's "Say You Don't Mind" which was a UK hit in the early '70's. "Leave Me Be" is a killer single and should have done much better.

[(rictified)]

Not knocking Zombies, liked some of the stuff , loved Let Me Be their second single. They did however acquire something of a cult status (probably incorrect phrase) in essence here in UK they had one top 40 single.

I didn't know that, they had three or four hits here including Time of the Season which was a huge record, Argent were big on FM radio here too.

[(coolingitdown)]

Having seen them live 3 times now, i can say that certainly do sound fantastic after all these years! The first time i saw them, Love opened. The second time, Ian Hunter of Mott the hoople, and this last time it was the Strawbs. Great openers all!

[(pocaloc)]

Without noticing the 50th anniversary note and having not exposure to the zombies, I clicked on this. I can say with no doubt... it was not what I expecting from a band called the Zombies. It's good to be exposed to things outside your wheelhouse sometimes though!

You should check out odessey and oracle and there singles albums. Some really great stuff there. I personally didn't like the new song that much, but there old stuff is really great IMO.

[(jingle_jangle)]

Amen to that. These are all assembled on their CD folio set from the late 1990s--Zombie Heaven. The Zombies have always been high on my list of pop originals. "Tell Her No" is one example in my mind of a perfect pop song for its era, even if it's impossible to dance to...

"Breathe In, Breathe Out" has terrific pop lyrics and a great hook, but it sounds like mid-'80s Huey Lewis to me ("If This Is It"), as far as instrumentation and arrangement goes. Tough to get the similarity out of my head.

[(JeffZ)]

The tempo is similar to "If This Is It", but the melody line of "Breath Out, Breath In" doesn't strike me as being related to the former song at all. Plus, Rod's piano actually sounds like a piano; the plastic production on the Huey Lewis stuff used to drive me crazy when it would come up on MTV years ago...

[(bartyclue)]

Time of the season has always been IMHO a very underated tune. Such a cool sound and so ahead of its time

[(jps)]

Time of the season has always been IMHO a very underated tune. Such a cool sound and so ahead of its time

Great song. We do a version done by Shaw-Blades, which is a bit heavier, but I play a bass line kind of vacillates between the two versions.

[(ByrdBro)]

The Zombies, an excellent band, had a great sound and wrote good songs. Sadly they didn't quite get the success they deserved, over here in the UK as previously mentioned.Their songs live on today luckily, for example "She's Not There" ,having been covered by many well known artists.

Worth mentioning that Rod went on to form a band called Argent, they were all top rate musicians and with Russ Ballard wrote some successful songs. Colin Blunstone pursued a solo career.

It's nice to see that Rod and Colin are still together after all these years. So nice to see people who really enjoy their music instead of being in the business to seek celebrity and wealth.