Tack-piano attacks like a ticking alarm clock in a lone isolated phrase; yes, it is now the time (of the season) for some special occasion, some rising up out of a bed of obscurity for one singular great day of fame—such is a description of the Zombie’s one-off wonder Odessey and Oracle, an awesome album from 1968 released by a band that by that time was already broken-up and done-for. “Good morning to you…” the first song starts sung in prim smoky-tone over a delightfully familiar descending chord progression, just piano and drums chopping along. Bass enters in on tasteful phrases. The lyrics appear to regard man-n-woman’s long-anticipated reunion, divulged in the form of a letter; but how clever a concept when you realize that the boy plans to go get his girl from a correctional facility! Lyrics like “and we’ll get to know each other for a second time / and then you can tell me ’bout your prison stay…” reveal and explain the title ‘Care of Cell 44’. All the while, the music is sunshine-bright and beautified by spacious fades of mellotron and harmony vocal. In a chorus rivaling the best of the Beach Boys, ‘Care of Cell 44’ comes loaded with huge layers of heavenly harmony. “Feels so good!” ‘A Rose for Emily’ subverts expectations. An optimistic opening line “the summer is here at last” is coupled with the contrasting “the sky is overcast”. Worst yet, “no one brings a rose” for the eponymous Emily, and that’s what this is all sadly about. Played on piano, the song and its simple set-up become belied by complicated chords, inverted and diminished, minor and major, everywhere in the scale and beyond. Indeed, it all changes key for the chorus with well-woven vocal parts reflecting further on Emily’s hapless reality. Audible guitar occupies the shadowy opening of ‘Maybe After He’s Gone’, a sudden power-ballad in its chorus with walls of harmony, hammering piano, and the simple and somewhat desperate refrain: “maybe after he’s gone / she’ll come back / love me again”. Further verses wallow in great gloom with dramatic declarations of “I feel I’ll never breathe again / I feel life’s gone from me”. Drums thunder from a low valley and extra singers add sad la-la’s on the offbeats. These drastically different sections alternate (once with a bridge in between); and there’s finally an a cappella ending on those uncertain chorus words. Now the hazy glaze of 1967 summer-o-love shows up in the full swingin-psych of ‘Beechwood Park’. Warm organ and tremulous guitar walk in this pretty park together through a series of intriguing twists and shocking harmonic realizations—it’s a-lot like the natural ebb-n-flow of a free, sleepy mind. On those notes, the lyrics lean on wistful memories, detail-free impressions of the past with lovely music to match: “and the breeze would touch your hair / kiss your face and make you care / about your world / your summer world”. Hear the divine church-choir conclusion; it’s all a dusty dream for bygone times and untouchable things. ‘Brief Candles’ handles its drastic dynamics much in the same way as ‘Maybe After He’s Gone’ (ie, a sad and elegant section gives way to an enormous chorus). Each verse, with its pensive piano passages, features a distinct singer describing some lonely broken soul; but all is not lost as the music smooths into an exciting tune of triumph, an anthem of huge harmony with words “brief candles in his mind / bright and tiny gems of memory / brief candles burn so fine / leaves a light inside where he can see / what makes it all worthwhile / his sadness makes him smile”. How ear-catching! How encouraging! Next track trods through its end-twist progression insistently, the last chord always a strange yet stable resolution in this most noble of odes to the flower-power scene of the sixties: ‘Hung Up On a Dream’. The lyrics retell the singer’s blissful entrance into hippiedom when “a sweet vibration filled the air”, and how “[he] stood astounded staring hard / at men with flowers resting in their hair”. But what about that bridge? ’Tis revealed that this scene was just a dream, nothing but a transient time, a pleasant and intense memory that the narrator can never relive. But he’s hung up! The song haunts on with the presence of two more verses (now up a notch in a new key) and all the ghost vocals echoing each word (along with the tired lines “sometimes I think I’ll never find / such purity and peace of mind, again”). ‘Changes’ changes things up, appropriately so. This contrasting track blasts with banging bongos and overloaded harmony walls, these vocals repeating seasonal lyrics almost a cappella (save for the tribal percussion). Second section sounds outrageously dissimilar to the first due to its jazzy piano progression. These separate sections, essentially two distinct tunes, trade awhile and that’s all that really occurs in one of the longer songs on the album. Let that delayed bass bob along to introduce ‘I Want Her She Wants Me’, a harpsichorded rocker with audible guitar—again, the guitar does not feature nearly as frequently as common for contemporaries of ze Zombies. This track’s tune tickles the ear with its pleasant pop and optimistic message of mutual love. Maybe the mood’s a bit more menacing on the bridge (with lines advising care and caution); but ultimately, everything adheres to the easy-breezing feel-good stressless sentiment of young love: “there’s nothing on my mind / and life seems kind now!”. Piano drives the ballad-bus for ‘This Will Be Our Year’, a pretty little ditty refraining on the tag “this will be our year / took a long time to come”. The chords of the chorus capture the tumultuous up-n-down emotions of a pre-dating duo; but now their time is right. There’s even a short plunky piano solo and a key change stepping things up for maximum momentum in this lovely two-minute tune. There’s a big change of pace on ‘Butcher’s Tale (Western Front 1914)’ with its ominous winds and repetitive pump-organ passage. We’re here in the horrors of World War I as a poor butcher-turned-slayer sheds some dark light on the scenes of battle: “and I have seen a friend of mine / hang on the wire like some rag toy / then in the heat the flies come down / and cover up the boy”. The bleak chorus is most blood-curdling as butcherboy wails “I can’t stop shaking / my hands won’t stop shaking / my arms won’t stop shaking / my mind won’t stop shaking”. Of course, this eerie experience is utterly out of place on this album; but it isn’t unwelcome to any interested ears. ‘Friends of Mine’ be a twee tune about how touching it can be “to know two people / so in love, so in love”; in other words, it’s just a thoughtful guy feeling jazzed since his friends have found love. The music is straight-up fast piano-pop complete with the catchiest chorus—leadsinging repeats the title tunefully as buncho-backups say the names of specific friend-pairs: “Kim and Maggie / June and Duffy / Jean and Jim and / Jim and Christie” (I always enjoy that two Jims are mentioned—or maybe it’s the same scandalous Jim?). Cute composition. “Aw”, it ends. And at last ‘Time of the Season’ comes to close out the album with its classic claps and gasps and iconic drum-n-bass spooky-groove. Sensual singing comes to its glorious chorus with all voices together, tight and unaided by any instruments to express a simple statement: “it’s the time of the season for loving”. And there’s a few extended solos for an inspired electric-organ cutting loose over the only real instance of jamming this band left on the record. It’s a fine finish. Odessey and Oracle: it’s a mash of music characterized by a classical mode of composition, an ear-pleasing pop-sensible melody perspective, and a strong 1960s-style emphasis on love. Everything’s good-n-groovy, brother-n-sisters. Each song, crafted carefully with juicy artistic alloys, offers its own unique strength and sparkle. Taken as a whole, this album’s certainly one of the brightest and most substantial sets of songs of its time and season. [And even in 2019, 50+ years after the fact, the original band hasn't lost its verve and performs the entire album live! I won't forget a bunch of old Zombies making such beautiful music before my eyes—I hope they touch you all with their infectious melodies]