The Zombies
Continue Here [Mono Remastered]
BEECHWOOD PARK
No British Invasion group produced a more puzzling discography than The Zombies. By the time they called it quits in late 1967, the St. Albans–based quintet had released exactly two LPs: 1965’s Begin Here (issued in the US as The Zombies), a fun but covers-heavy set haphazardly thrown together in the wake of their worldwide 1964 smash “She’s Not There,” and 1967’s Odessey and Oracle, an era-defining masterpiece of psychedelia-infused pop. An evolutionary stage clearly existed between the two, but it hadn’t been captured on an album.
As revealed in the superb 2023 documentary Hung Up on a Dream, this oversight was largely the result of the band members trying desperately to balance a demanding international touring schedule with pressure from Decca Records to produce a new single every six weeks. So at a time when contemporaries like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, and The Hollies were making great albums, The Zombies were too stressed—and too limited by their record label’s myopic vision—to think outside of the three-minute box. And yet, the band’s main songwriters Rod Argent and Chris White nonetheless managed to rise to the challenge, cranking out one increasingly sophisticated keyboard-driven pop single after another.
Continue Here finally fills that unfortunate gap between Begin Here and Odessey and Oracle by collecting 18 incredible Zombies tracks (19 on the CD version) recorded from 1964 to 1967—non-album singles, B-sides, and even songs recorded for Otto Preminger’s 1965 thriller Bunny Lake Is Missing, in which the band made a brief cameo. While different combinations of these tracks (many of which have been covered by the esteemed likes of Tom Petty, Yo La Tengo, Young Fresh Fellows, The Fastbacks and The Sneetches) have been circulating for decades on various compilations, they’ve never been presented in chronological order before, and they’ve never sounded this good.
As with Beechwood Park’s stellar recent reissues of Begin Here and Odessey and Oracle, Continue Here’s contents have been remastered in glorious mono; songs like “Just Out of Reach,” “Is This the Dream,” and “Indication” positively sparkle with exuberant life, and the eerie tenor of lead singer Colin Blunstone feels thrillingly close to your ear. Continue Here is an absolutely essential piece of the Zombies puzzle, and highly recommended for any fan of timeless pop music.
