The Zombies - Odessey and Oracle

Odessey and Oracle is the resurrection story rock history keeps retelling, an album the band had already broken up over before anyone realized what they'd made, now finally available in its original mono mix for the first time in America.

The Zombies recorded this in 1967 on a shoestring budget just as they were falling apart, and by the time it came out in 1968 the group had already disbanded, convinced nobody wanted it. They were wrong by about a decade. Time of the Season became a massive posthumous hit in the US, and the record has since climbed into Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums list, reassessed as a genuine psych-pop landmark that arrived before the culture had caught up to it. Even the misspelled title, a graphic artist's typo the band decided to keep, became part of the legend rather than an embarrassment.

Care of Cell 44 opens the record with one of pop's strangest premises, a love song written from the perspective of someone waiting for their partner's release from prison, delivered with total sincerity over gorgeous baroque harmony. This Will Be Our Year carries real, unguarded optimism. A Rose for Emily sets a genuinely literary character study to Rod Argent's most delicate melody, and Time of the Season closes the album as the hit nobody around at the time got to see coming.

Newly remastered in mono with liner notes from David Fricke, the original way this record was actually meant to be heard.