Odessey and Oracle by The Zombies

Odessey and Oracle, the Zombies' second album, came out on CBS in the UK on 19 April 1968, and it's a record that almost nobody noticed until the band was gone. Dropped by Decca, the St Albans group paid for the sessions themselves, cutting it mostly between June and August 1967 at EMI's studios and at Olympic in London, with Rod Argent producing.

It's baroque pop of the gentlest, most intricate kind: Argent's keyboards weaving around Colin Blunstone's breathy, fragile voice, everything kept light and airy. The singles and the album went nowhere, and the band quietly broke up. Then Al Kooper, a staff producer at CBS, pushed for "Time of the Season" to come out on Date Records in the US, and it became a surprise hit in early 1969. The cult grew from there, and today it stands among the most acclaimed albums of the decade.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.