With hindsight, it seems as if the
Zombies didn't so much come to a halt as split off into two different directions.
Colin Blunstone would take the band's poppiest, sweetest elements;
Argent would take the gutsier ones, and appropriate the intricate keyboard arrangements (naturally enough, as keyboardist
Rod Argent was the leader of both
Argent and the
Zombies). Neither
Blunstone nor
Argent would approach the majesty of the
Zombies' prime, but they'd offer some pretty fair approximations. And that's what you get on
Argent's self-titled debut -- a fair approximation of late-period
Zombies, with a much heavier hard/progressive rock feel. There's nothing that's nearly as arresting as
Odessey and Oracle, but it's not bad at all. Includes
Russ Ballard's "Liar," the first
Argent track to get heavy airplay in the U.S.