The Zombies - Odessey & Oracle

Odessey & Oracle (1968) *****

I reviewed this nearly a dozen years ago on my old site and time hasn't changed my opinion:  this is an essential pop masterpiece that in the mildly psychedelic, baroque-pop sweepstakes betters the somewhat overhyped Pet Sounds and track for track rivals the very best of the top tier Beatles LPs (yes, seriously - and recorded at Abbey Road, nonetheless).  Any complaints of lack of variety are mooted by the fact that the piano & mellotron pop style the Zombies perfected here is perfectly perfect in perfection:  harmonically and melodically Argent & White's tunes display a sophistication few of their British Invasion peers could match (John & Paul at their best, and maybe Ray Davies on an ambitious day).  It would be a lie to claim that the album sounds like nothing before or since (the Coldplay comparison in my previous review was not facetious); unlike most other latter-half of the '60s masterpieces, the Zombies aren't particularly experimental or interested in stretching any sonic boundaries - what you get are a dozen rather conventional keyboard pop songs of exceptional quality.  The melodramatic "Butcher's Tale (Western Front 1914)" breaks the monotony of the style, but not in a good way, and along with the rather hookless "Changes," counts as the album's two sole bummers.  The rest of the tunes are gorgeous mini-masterstrokes of melodious invention and pure pop craftsmanship, god bless us every single one.  Ironically, "Time of the Season," became an international #1 smash only after the band had broken up (they went in intending the album as their swansong), but is it truly any better than any other random tune on the album?  No, not really.  The opener, "Care of Cell 44," opens the album on a "Good Day Sunshine,"-ish poundingly anthemic note, surging a little too forcefully into the blaring chorus, but hang on, what are those lyrics about?  Greeting your girlfriend on her day of release from prison!  "A Rose for Emily," (inspired by the William Faulkner short story) and "Beechwood Park," (which some claim swipes the melody from "A Whiter Shade of Pale," but my ears can't detect it) are similar in a stately balladic piece, while "Brief Candles," (apparently about lonely alcoholics, from what I can make out, though I could be and clearly am wrong) and "Maybe After He's Gone," (after you break up with your boyfriend, will you please pretty please consider little old me? What a wimp!) employ the quietly intense verses/blaring chorus trick again.  "Hung Up On a Dream," veers the closest to psych-pop territory with its hippy-dippy kaleidescope technicolor lyrics and dreamy yet surging melodic structure - as gee-orgee-ous as the pretty girl you've got a crush on.  But it's "This Will Be Our Year," which is the sleeper - much simpler in structure and all the more effective for its relative simplicity; there aren't too many rousing yet understated New Year's songs to celebrate the incoming year, and for that alone this shall always rank as a classic:  what other song are you possibly going to play as midnight strikes on Jan. 31?  "Friends of Mine," bounces like a rolling puppy in its awe-shucks name-listing of couples in love, though it does make me cringe a little when my own name is listed ("Liz and Brian").  Well, you'd cringe, too, if the song listed your name as well.  Especially if your name was Brian.  Oh, I haven't mentioned "I Want Her, She Wants Me," yet.  That's because it's rather ordinary.  Not bad.  Just nothing special.

Now, on to the bonus tracks, which are the reason I'm reviewing this album twice (that, and my original review wasn't that great; this one's much more detailed - longwinded if you don't prefer).  Make sure you somehow obtain the German import on the Repertoire label, as the 16 bonus tracks make it the most fully packed and definitive edition.  The bonus tracks aren't universally excellent as the album proper is, which is to be expected, but I daresay there's hardly any track that doesn't have some bit of merit - the lone instrumental, "Conversation Off Floral Street," comes the closest, but that's just because it's an instrumental.  The two covers ("Gotta Get a Hold of Myself," and "Going Out of My Head,") are wisely pop not R&B covers; the Zombies were clearly much more suited tackling Burt Bacharach than Willie Dixon.  "Don't Cry For Me," leaps out as the Zombies' most excitingly convincing up-tempo raver - you could almost say it rocks.   "Girl Help Me," and "Smokey Day," are of a piece, sustaining a moody mood that smokily reflects the latter title; "I Know She Will," is a cloyingly touching Miss Lonelyhearts advice column; and the singles recorded shortly after the Odyssey sessions, "Imagine the Swan," and "I Call You Mine," would've fit swell to swell the original LP up to 14 tracks.  Oh, and there's the frothily bouncy-lovely "She Loves the Way They Love Her," as well as the measured-stately "Walking in the Sun," and.....what am I, going to review every single track?  I almost did but I'll quit while I'm ahead, I think I've covered all the essential stuff.  The bonus tracks essentially double the original album and thus double the original five star rating, which means that this album receives **********.  Combined with the 31-track Repertoire issue of Begin Here, these two discs constitute the complete recorded studio output of the Zombies' 1960s material (sadly, they would briefly reunite to spoil their legacy to record a pair of one-offs in the '90s and '00s - which would make them two-offs, technically, I suppose).  Minus BBC sessions and the like, but who needs those?

The Zombies - Begin Here

Begin Here (1965) ****

The Zombies were a British Invasion beat group best known for the haunting, "She's Not There," which still stands up as one of the finest singles of the era (or any era).  Seminally you could call them pioneers of "keyboard rock", bespectacled nerds breathily cooing fragile mid-tempo balladic odes to unrequited love, and thus blame them indirectly for the likes of Coldplay.  Their debut album is certainly not rubbish, but it does suffer from first-album-by-seminal-British-Invasiion-act syndrome:  that is, waaaaaaay too many covers.  Half the original 14 track album, in fact, leaving only 7 originals to judge the band's merits upon.  As predictable, the revved up R&B rockers don't suit the band's style at all, and the best you can say about the likes of "Roadrunner," and "I Got My Mojo Working," is that they're harmlessly generic whitebread British Invasion covers of black American soul, hardly worse than what the Rolling Stones and Kinks were performing at the time.  And how many times do we have to hear Smokey Robinson's "You Really Got a Hold On Me," with a nasal limey accent?  Only Gershwin's lazily laidback, "Summertime," seems to truly suit the lads' proclivities.  The originals are naturally much better, but half of those can be damned with the faint praise of "shows promise".  And what's half of 7?  Of the non-formative originals, I've already mentioned "She's Not There," which succeeds in doing something hardly any other British Invasion band of the era was capable of:  it swings, and quite jazzily.  "The Way I Feel Inside," which fragmentarily registers at under two minutes and is almost acapella with slight organ swelling and a coin clattering as the backdrop, haunts with its beautiful spareness; "I Remember the Way I Loved Her," is a bit more conventional of a ballad in a similar style, and is quite lovely as well.  Those three were written by keyboardist Rod Argent, who contributes another number, "Woman," that is once again too aggressively horny to suit the band's temperament.  Bassist Chris White chips in three tunes, but none of them are much better than, "Mmm, OK.  Shows a lot of promise.  Keep it up lad, someday you'll produce a real corker."  As such, the original 14-track album receives the grade I gave it in my brief review preceding.

The 2001 German import that appends 17 bonus tracks (grand total: 31 tracks - but you can do math, can't you?) is another story altogether.  Gathering up singles, B-sides, and precisely one outtake (the final track, "I'm Going Home," another R&B cover not worth your time), this is the definitive case of the bonus tracks outweighing in sheer gold bulk and worth the original LP itself.  Chris White's "Leave Me Be," (the first great song he wrote, apparently) is a paranoid, mopey teen-angst anthem worthy of Roy Orbison or Morrissey, with its swift modulation from dreamily sad chorus to shriekingly raging chorus.  Self-pity - ah, sometimes a wonderful emotional state to wallow in.  Hand me the tissues.  There's their second hit, "Tell Her No," which always seemed a bit headscratching to me, as it's never been a bit favorite of mine when the Zombies had superior material on the ready; but it's a fine single anyways, and darndest difficult to dislodge the "no no no no no no," chorus.  The pounding piano riff that segues into the chorus of "She's Coming Home," would've made for a finer followup to "She's Not There," in my world, but hey, it's not my world - it's Zombie World.  (Yes, I can hear you groaning at that pun.)  Moving on, we land upon track 23, "Whenever You're Ready."  My powers of critical analysis fail me at this point.  This is not only the Zombies' greatest song, it is literally as good as your favorite Beatles track, which is to say without any hyperbole that this is the greatest song ever recorded by man, living or undead.  If you haven't heard it, stop reading this review now, get on Youtube and listen.  I'll save you the trouble (you knew I would); see embedded Youtube below.  Anyhow, a 17-track song by song review isn't what you've got the attention span to read, so let me conclude that while there are a few bonus songs that aren't all there, they're mostly quality material - a considerable improvement over the debut album, if not quite Odyssey & Oracle quality just yet.  White has grown into a decent songwriter, and along with Argent's improving skills, the Zombies are finally able to tackle upbeat, organ-crackling rockers such as "Indication," convincingly.  But they're still at their best handling fragile balladry such as "How We Were Before," which is just cry-in-my-wine-cooler heartbreaking.  And a mid-tempo pop-rocker as "Don't Go Away," is.....

 END HERE

The Zombies - Begin Here



Begin Here (1965) **1/2

Don't.

The Go-Betweens - Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express

The rain hit the roof with the sound of a finished kiss

Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express (1986) ****

I hate long and clunky album titles.  The Go-Betweens are neither long-winded nor clunky here, though - another 10 song set (what's up with that number again?  Would it have killed them to add a pair from their voluminous outtakes & B-sides vault to make it an even 12 for once?  Or better 14?) that finally gets it just right as Goldilocks said:  a happy, sober medium of pop polish that's not too overproduced and " '80s ".  A substantial improvement over their previous full-length efforts, which is why it receives the exact same grade?  No, this is a case where the original ten-song album deservedly earns its four stars, but the bonus tracks this time round wind up caveat emptor:  mostly alternate versions from edited singles and radio versions, and the unreleased songs, with the exception of the fine "Life at Hand," are decidedly non-essential.  There's a re-recorded version of "Don't Let Him Come Back," that stands in overproduced relation to the original 1979 B-side as the Police's "Don't Stand So Close to Me '86" does to the original 1980 Police single.  "I Work in a Health Spa," and "Reunion Dinner," are novelty spoken-word tracks, the latter only noteworthy as the backing track is electronic cut'n'paste.  The bouncy, horny (in both senses) version of "Casanova's Last Words," doesn't work very well here (would be much improved when they acoustic-ed it up and slowed it down, with a much-improved key lyric change as well - "don't drain the well," doesn't sound half as good as "don't kiss and tell," not to mention more appropriate for the lyrical subject).  There's a live cover of a Tin Pan Alley classic "I'm Gonna Knock On Your Door," that they play as if it's the Ramones - at under 2 minutes, it's out of the way briefly and thus ends the bonus track portion of the two discs.

The album proper has a lighter and yet lusher touch than the previous albums; the music feels the lightest of any Go-Betweens record, by which I mean the feathery production not necessarily the songs (which, come to think of it, are more lightweight than usual - not a bad thing, mind; just means they're not so dour and grim this time out.)  Kicks off with Forster's jangle-fest "Spring Rain," a song that seems intent on defining the word "toe-tapper," - it's sprightly.  In terms of imagery (certainly) and feel (yes) it's somewhat reminiscent of prime....CCR?  Yep, that's the right analogy.  Not soundwise, certainly not - very little bluesy or roots-rocky about the Go-Betweens, but they are extremely folksy, and so they nail down the spirit if not exact sound of John Fogerty do-do-do lookin' out his front door at the rain fallin' down on a sunny day.  McLennan's "Wrong Road," is even Creedencier in tone, a moody crawl based on a nagging angular guitar hook.  Oh, so Forster wrote the upbeat one and McLennan wrote the moody one?  I see that their songwriting styles are converging.  Unlike previous Go-Betweens albums, there are practically no low points; the worst I can say about a relatively weaker track such as "The Ghost and the Black Hat," is that it sort of frothily, if highly pleasantly, passes me by.  There aren't a heck of a lot of high points, either, with nothing quite reaching the masterstroke status of "Cattle and Cane," or "Bachelor Kisses."  This album exemplifies what I said in my intro to the band about how the Go-Betweens are, for both good and ill, the most consistent band in the Antipodes.  There's the downside to this album - it's all in the same style, and with neither great peaks nor valleys, it flows by a wee bit too consistently to hold undisturbed interest.  OK, that quibble aside - rarely has the band sounded more joyous than on the ebullient yet aching, "To Reach Me," which would rank as perfectly surging power-pop with beefier'n'punchier production.  Yes, this album is too thinly produced, but I'm on the fence about that, as it fits the album's featherweight charm - wouldn't sound the same if it were produced well.  "Apology Accepted," ends the album on a shakily insecure emotional grace note, and....sigh, this review is getting as long-winded as the album title itself, so more song-by-song analysis I'll leave by the by.  It's not quite a masterpiece and it doesn't quite blow me away, but it's as lovable and listenable and pleasurable as jingly-jangly collections of pop songs by pushing-30 demi-yuppies from Down Under get.

The Marvelettes - The Ultimate Collection

The Ultimate Collection (1998) ****

Right am I or not am I, is not or not is "Please Mr. Postman," the greatest song in rock'n'roll history?  Bouncing immediately to the irresistable chorus with ferocious energy and an effortlessly tight rhythm section, it hits the ground running before you've even caught your breath.  OK, so maybe that's hyperbole - it's not the greatest song of all time (arguable) but it is the greatest girl-group song of all time (inarguable, and don't bring up the Ronettes or the Shangri-La's, "Leader of the Pack," is novelty silly).  Oh, did I mention that it was Motown's first #1 hit single?  For that alone the Marvelettes earn at least a footnote in the history books.  They never managed another smash nearly as smashing as that chart debut - how could they follow that up? - which is to say (see four-star rating above) they had plenty more good to great material in their reportoire, from the Top Ten hits to the entries on the lower rungs of the Top 40 (or even 100) to the worthy album tracks and B-sides that deserved wider exposure.  Apparently they had five lineup changes over the course of their career (this compilation ends in 1970, after which they quietly split up several years later after a dry spell of non-hits), so I'm not going to worry myself over who's who on what lead or backing vocal track; as with most Motown performers, they maintained a consistent sound due to Berry Gordy's assembly line production ethic.  What counted was the song, and the Marvelettes received quality material for their A-sides from top of the line songwriters Dozier/Holland and Smokey Robinson, among others. 

At 25 tracks there are bound to be a few misfires, notably the quickie cash-in "Twistin' Postman," but mostly the Marvs delivered the goods - why they weren't promoted as successfully as the Supremes is a mystery (actually, not; Berry Gordy had the hots for Diana Ross).  Here's the point in the review where I scan the tracklist and try to single out a handful of highlights.  Marvin Gaye's "Beechwood 4-5789" ranks in the first rank of rock'n'roll telephone songs; my my how technology has spread, now that everyone has five cellphones numbers have to stretch beyond five digits.  Eventually there will be so many people with so many telephones that numbers will be assigned with nearly a dozen digits.  Wait, you say they already are?  Shit.  "Forever," is one of those B-sides that snuck up and almost out-charted its A-side; a classy, yearning, soulful ballad steelily but tenderly reeking of clinging desperation, it's what you might refer to as a "classic".  Apparently a big hit at weddings, too.  While a U.K. beat group entitled the Action OWN "I'll Keep Holding On," (in their version, the greatest song ever recorded), the Marvelettes' original is brill-excellento in its own right, and well worth hearing in both versions.  That way you get to hear "I'll Keep Holding On," twice!  Sung from the POV of an insecure woman to an aquaintance that she's afraid is out to steal her boyfriend, "Don't Mess With Bill," finds Smokey at his smokily downbeat finest, as is "The Hunter Gets Captured By the Game."  The Marvellettes grew slightly softer as the decade wound to a close, which doesn't mean that "When You're Young and in Love," and "That's How Heartaches Are Made," aren't touchingly affecting soft-rock for your inner squishy.  It's hard to associate Motown with the adjectives "underrated," and "underexposed," but the Marvelettes fit the envelope.

Fischer-Z - Red Skies Over Paradise

Red Skies Over Paradise (1981) ***1/2

The early '80s were a paranoid time.  I remember as a kid one of the big events was a mini-series entitled The Day After that detailed the struggles of survivors of a nuclear holocaust, and as well watching a couple of other imported series from the U.K. on PBS (back in the days before cable, it was useful mostly as the place to catch BBC programming that obviously wasn't going to be broadcast on the three major networks).  Reagan and Thatcher had come into power, and the U.S.S.R. was being run by a cadre of ossiffied, out-of-touch Soviet mummies leftover from the Stalinist era.  The civilized world was convinced that at any moment the Cold War rhetoric would heat up and the aging hardliners in the Pentagon and the Kremlin would blast our fragile edifice of civilization to smithereens.  Protests for nuclear disarmament were the cause celebre of the day, with rock festivals against nuclear power and mass sit-ins flickering in the blue light of TV screens from Western Europe and North America.  History lesson for you Gen Y'ers reading out there - humanity has always been fearful that humans are going to fuck it up and destroy the planet.  The exact modus operandi has changed - nowadays it's global warming; then, nuclear obliteration.  Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

History class dismissed; now let's get on to this, the third Fischer-Z album, and the final one by the original lineup (they reformed in the late '80s and have released several albums since then, but I'm pretty firmly sure I am zero percent uninterested).  I knew if I stuck around with these guys long enough they'd produce a good album, and lo and behold, they've produced a friggin' masterpiece.  Well....only half a masterpiece, mostly contained on the first half.  Damn that insufferable inconsistency - why should I put up with teeth-grating, dated quasi-sexist quasi-Puritan crap like "Bathroom Scenario," bemoaning the horrors of a modern world in which condoms and tampons can be freely bought without shame in the supermarkets?  "The Writer," and "You'll Never Find Brian Here," (another early '80s cause celebre, the plight of runaway children, at least in pop songs [see XTC's "Runaways," Bon Jovi's "Runaway," Pat Benatar's hilariously campy video of "Love is a Battlefield"] - a little baffling as to why that specific cause became so hip at that particular moment in pop time, but nevermind)....ahem, those two songs deviate from the concept lyrically as well, and both sortasuck.  Anywho, the album gets off on a great start, with the first three songs holding up as the finest three-way stretch of Fischermusic recorded so far (and probably since).  "Berlin," may be a shameless "London Calling," ripoff, but who cares, it stomps and clomps and thuds and plods along as effectively as the Clash's one-chord apocalyptic anthem.  "Marliese," surges power-poppingly (about a German fanstalker, from the looks of the lyrics), before we segue back in the concept with the title track, with its magnificently militaristic "down the bunkers," chorus.  From thence on out the album grows more inconsistent - good songs, bad songs, the pretty fragile melodious "Luton to Lisbon," much too short and fragmentary at under two minutes, segueing into the annoying, "Multinationals Bite," is typical.  "Battalions of Strangers," is another particular highlight, its morbid but anthemic quality (and heavy, bombastic synths) analogizing as a Magazine-influenced track from Who's Next. 

The Go-Betweens - Spring Hill Fair

Like mud in the September rain it comes back to me

Spring Hill Fair (1984) ****

A weak four stars, and a mild letdown from the previous album; in fact, shear the bonus tracks off this release and it drops down half a point to three-and-a-half.  But just as the bonus tracks lifted Send Me a Lullaby from a strong two-and-half to a weak but respectable three star rating, so the extra meat adds flavour to the gristle here as well.  The main problem isn't so much the advance in sound from hard-edged jangle to more mainstreamish pop production (which is admittedly a problem, but lurching towards the pop mainstream lays the brickwork for future mainstream pop masterpiece 16 Lovers Lane) as the somewhat more inconsistent songwriting.  Let's get to the good stuff first.  Never before or since has a Go-Betweens album begun as masterfully as McLennan's "Bachelor Kisses," a gorgeously lush yet understated ringer for a lost late-period Roxy Music ballad, only more humbly humane and tenderly soulful than Bryan Ferry ever seemed quite capable of.  But perhaps it's Forster's "Draining the Pool for You," that lodges in the brain most securely, mostly for the lyrics, which amount to a scathing character assassination of new rich air/cokeheads from the point of view of the pool repairman, with the dry, jagged spareness cutting sharply in time.  Play these two back to back and you've a perfect double A-side representation of the McLennan/Forster sides of the band.  Oh, there are other songs, too, including a remake of "Man O'Sand to Girl O'Sea," that's fractionally more measured/produced/less exciting than the rawer original single (but sometimes fractions are all that matters; I'll never listen to this version again when I have access to the single).  But those two are the clear standouts.  About half of the songs on the original ten-track album are finely excellent goodness quality expected of the Go-Betweens, particularly the simply lovely, "Part Company."  "Five Words," softly stomps its leather shoes in tap-time quite well; apparently it's a co-write, which explains why Grant and Robert are dueting with each other (not that I can figure out which is which).  If "You've Never Lived," is rather hectoring, it does give McLennan the chance to show off some blistering, if unexceptionally bar-bandish, guitar soloing (Robert Vickers joined on bass to make it a four-piece, and newly guitarist Grant apparently couldn't resist).  The spoken-word track, "River of Money," is a particular low point, however; the story's pretty easy to understand but I'm not very interested in it, perhaps (oh no, definitely because) the music's so boring.  Vocal melodies!  Where's a vocal melody?  My collected vinyl for a vocal melody!  Those are things you aren't going to get when you're talking instead of singing.  Several other songs are simply too brassy for comfort and wind up uneventful duds as a result; moving towards the mainstream as a more conventional four-piece smoothed out a bit too smoothly the charmingly ragged, awkward post-punk edges present on their first two albums.  To make myself more clear:  the sound, being more mainstream, simply isn't as interesting as Before Hollywood.  It was a nice sound they'd developed as a not-quite-power trio, and now it's forever gone.  From hence on out, the Go-Betweens live and die solely by the strength of their songs.  Good thing Forster/McLennan are good songwriters, eh? (as mooseheads say in a remote Arctic wasteland 5,000 miles from Oz).

As I said in my first sentence, the bonus tracks bring this up a notch.  The first three in the ten-track batch are stronger than the weaker (read: weak) tracks on the album proper, underproduced to almost demo-ish quality, and all the superior for the lack of polish:  "Emperor's Courtesan," "Rare Breed," (digging the let's-spell-the-title-out chorus, always a neat and pleasant, if obvious, trick), "Newton Told Me," (lyrics as clever as you'd expect from the title).  An instrumental version of "Unkind and Unwise," is quite unnecessary, but otherwise there's little to complain about among these tracks, even if no great lost classics leap out fore and center.  "Just Right for Him," is gracefully bitterless; "Second-Hand Furniture," gracefully bitter; "Marco Polo Jr." draggily moody; "Attraction," and "The Power That I Now Have," flipsides of sexual power dynamics; and "Sweet Tasting Hours," bittersweet.