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The Zombies: Breathe Out, Breathe In
CD: Breathe Out, Breathe In (2011, Red House Records)
by M. Alberto Rivera
The Zombies, the iconic 1960’s band who’s hits are synonymous with the decade, have a new release 50 years after the band initially formed. If you listen to this with fresh ears, you can thoroughly enjoy this disc. It does not pick up immediately following Odessey And Oracle, and neither is it an oldies act cashing in on nostalgia. Rather this new collection of 10 beautifully shaped pop songs is full of lush keyboards and enticing vocal arrangements.
The song Breathe Out, Breathe In has more in common with Steely Dan than the sort of organ driven pop the band was best known for in its heyday. The songs here show maturity and forward thinking and a refusal to be chained to past ideas. There’s a jazzy offhanded feeling to much of the material here.
Play It For Real sounds like a lost Beatles track, happy to see the light of day; and Let It Go could have been written by Procul Harum the same day they managed to hammer out A Whiter Shade Of Pale.
The Zombies sound the way a great band of their age and generation should. Smart enough not to be trite and attempt to repeat themselves, they instead choose to focus their efforts into making the best album they can today as the men they are now, rather than as the boys the used to be.
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