THE MOODY BLUES

This documentary/concert video is a wonderful time capsule of The Moody Blues' performance at the Isle of Wight Festival, one of the most legendary of the counter-culture rock festivals of the day. This really is the whole package for the Moodies fan. It's a mixture of documentary and live performance. In the beginning it cuts between music and interview with band members talking about their career and memories of the gig. We get some explanation and instruction on the Mellotron and how they employed it with keyboard enthusiasts would enjoy. It begins with a recitation of Threshold lyrics against shots of the young people, while some may find it cheesy I thought it worked.

After the first section it cuts more to full songs without interruption, and as the sun sets over 600,000 people, it is a wonderful experience to kick back in your living room and take in the Moodies and the intoxicating festival vibe. They cover all of their hits of course but I most enjoyed a song called "Meloncholy Man" which they dedicated to a groupie. The sound quality is adequate for 1970 although challenged by today's standards. The video is just beautifully done, it looks like it was taken 10 minutes ago. Good shots, good vantage points, nice mixed in shots of the crowd and scene. The performance itself is a bit sloppy in places, and let's face it, a big festival PA is not the ideal circumstances to see a group as refined as the Moodies. But what gets lost from the circumstances is more than made up for by catching a classic band in their prime....youthful determination overcomes much. They commented on this during the interviews....that at that time they were not businessmen yet, no houses, families, or other things to worry about. They had each other and their music and they took it very seriously. It shows. This is why I love concerts of the great bands in their early years despite the sound quality issues. There is nothing like seeing the great when they still were a "band of brothers" as Waters puts it, when what they were doing was so much less scripted and so fresh.

Probably not an essential DVD for most proggers, but certainly a no-brainer for Moodies fans.

I just stepped in a what? A steaming pile of slide zone you say? Here I go again, defending the indefensible...taking those crappy pseudo prog albums that most prog heads hate and speaking of them in glowing terms. What this entails is taking them in context of the artists' bodies of work and the times in which they were recorded, as well as how they have withstood the test of time. Picture if you will: the year was 1978, progressive rock was on life support, and the Moody Blues had been broken up for more than five years...you have just entered the twi-slide zone.

So just what is up with "Octave", the Moody Blues' supposed "comeback" album? Some say that it is too pop and not "proggy" enough. This point is highly debatable. First of all, the Moody Blues were hardly the most progressive of bands to begin with, eschewing the long songs and unconventional time signatures of their peers in favor of shorter songs and more straight ahead song structure. Where the Moodies were progressive was with their psychedelic flourishes, which often came off as insincere or gimmicky, and their approach to vocal harmony, which was arguably their greatest strength and still evident on "Octave". In this regard, "Octave" may be stronger than "Seventh Sojourn". From the chanting vocals on "Stepping in a Slide Zone" to the melancholia of "The Day We Meet Again", the Moodies demonstrate that their voices are their strongest instruments.

In many ways "The Story in Your Eyes" and "I'm Just a Singer...", from "Every Good Boy Deserves Favor" and "Seventh Sojourn" respectively, opened the door for the Moodies' more conventional rock arrangements found here, such as those on "I'll Be Level With You" and "Top Rank Suite". While not typical Moody Blues, they are still good songs. Where the Moody Blues demonstrate that they are really in top form are on ballads such as "Driftwood" and "Had to Fall in Love". Of course, detractors may say that these Justin Hayward compositions are sappy...to which I can only say: "Nights in White Satin". They would not be the Moody Blues without the propensity toward sap. If the Moody Blues' catalog were a tree, it would be a Sugar Maple...OK? This is not a good enough reason to dismiss the musicianship and song writing on "Octave".

3 and a half stars (out of five).

Surviving this period were bands that were able to take their progressive elements in a new, more pop oriented direction such as Genesis/Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel and...The Moody Blues. Let's not forget that the Moody Blues were participants in the "music business", and once you have played Carnegie Hall, you typically don't want to go back to playing county fairs or small venues. That is not where the money is. Can you really blame musicians for selling out? Perhaps. Is it pointless to play the blame game? Almost certainly. Until you've made the big-time, music can be a difficult life. Once you've made it, it is hard to let go. Bands were...and usually still are...under a good deal of pressure to grow their audience (i.e. their customers) and satisfy their record company (i.e. their investors). For those of you who don't like it, you still have a genre of prog rock just for you, RIO.

With that history and economics lecture behind us, let's assess "Long Distance Voyager", shall we? Yes, the album does have a couple of songs that were crafted to be pop singles ("The Voice" and "Gemini Dream")...very, very good pop singles. Actually, most Moody Blues albums had one or two songs that were inherently pop singles, so this is nothing new and I refuse to hold that against them. The album is also home to the driving, march-like "22,000 Days", the romantic and beautiful "Talking Out of Turn" and the fun, self-deprecating throwbacks to their more psychedelic era "Reflective Smile" and "Veteran Cosmic Rocker". Other highlights include the haunting and beautiful "In My World" and "Meanwhile".

Everything on "Long Distance Voyager" is played with a high level of musicianship and is, from a production standpoint, the best sounding Moody Blues album up to this point in their history. The songs are very well written and as crossover prog, this recording easily holds its own against Supertramp, Alan Parsons and E.L.O. recordings of the era. Is it perfect? No. Is it "Days of Future Passed" or "On the Threshold of a Dream"? No, nor should it be. That era had passed. Music and the Moodies had moved on, even if their hardcore fans hadn't.

Isn't life strange? I somehow got through this entire review without even mentioning Patrick Moraz. ;)

Many bands were able to work perfectly well in the BBC studios. The Pink Floyd, for example, who recorded lots of (sadly unreleased) sessions for the BBC, Syd Barrett who inexplicably recorded two sessions which were more 'together' than most of his studio work, or the Steeleye Span, whose great BBC recordings have only survived as lo-fi private recordings from medium wave transmissions.

What you'll find here are primarily short sessions, mostly consisting of two to three songs each. There's only one of the legendary BBC In Concert recordings here, which was recorded around New Year's Eve of 1970.

Depending on the DJ and the purpose, the BBC spent a variable amount of work on the different sessions on this compilation. Some of them, the more interesting ones, were recorded live - for instance the 1967 session which also spawned the unexpected Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood cover. Others were just live vocals recorded on the studio playbacks, such as House of Four Doors and one of the many Ride My See-Saws, which even has the studio Departure left in place. Sometimes, as in Voices In The Sky, it's hard to decide which parts of a recording are really live. Of course, this aspect doesn't change a lot about the quality of the music, but it affects the artistic relevance of this particular compilation.

A point which really deprives the music of their listenability is that factually all of the included recordings seem quite hurried. This effect occurs in several degrees. The least stressful case is when the pieces immediately fade in (and fade out) without taking the time to let the notes arise (or decay) - this occurs in actually all of the recordings. A bearable situation is when the tracks are faded out earlier, such as in Lovely To See You from the first CD. The worst case are the pieces which were disposed of certain instrumental parts or stanzas to fit into a certain time frame. This makes sense in the context of a radio programme in which certain pieces are needed to bridge the time between a documentary and the news, or in a music programme in which many bands want to be played, but those recordings don't really work on a CD compilation. Even the 1969 In Concert recording, a brief concert by the band, suffers from this time pressure. The complete Have You Heard/The Voyage/Have You Heard set is shortened to 5:42min, Legend Of A Mind is 4:34min long (including frantic applause) and Nights In White Satin merely takes three minutes. Mostly one chorus or one stanza get lost, but especially in Nights In White Satin the loss of the flute solo is very painful. The setlist is identical to the Caught Live+5 album, albeit obviously shorter - no huge additional benefit, expect for it being one of the rare early Moody Blues live recordings. Apart from Caught Live and the fairly messy Isle of Wight 1970 gig, the BBC sessions are the only way to listen to the live Moody Blues in an adequate sound quality.

Whilst on CD2 there is a The Actor and a Visions of Paradise of 1-2 minutes each, there curiously are versions of Voices in the Sky and The Best Way To Travel which are about twenty seconds longer than the original recordings. Adding to this situation that parts of these recordings might be taken from the studio album sessions I'm pretty sure that I'll never understand how these sessions exactly worked.

So, for what reasons could you bother buying this album? First and foremost for reasons of nostalgia, especially when you were an avid BBC listener in those days. There's lots of utterly warm and utterly cozy reverb on the vocals, plenty of analogue compressors and many radio moderators impolitely speaking polite announcements right into the beginnings of the songs. This is how music sounded in the radio in those days, and the exhaustive approach of putting all BBC sessions on the compilation ties in well with this 'journey through time' idea. The extensive booklet with lots of pictures adds to this effect, too. And, again, it's always nice to hear how Mike Pinder competently tackled the erratic Mellotron live.

Of course, you cannot listen to these 2CDs from the beginning until the end. Most of the songs appear in at least two versions, which are mostly pretty similar to each other as well. But I found out that it's pretty entertaining to put some of these recordings in the MP3 collections which I sometimes put together for the car.

Since most of the recordings are part of the deluxe re-issues of the studio albums, which most fans surely own by now, I find it hard to recommend this set to anyone. Those who like the Moody Blues and/or the BBC, and who do not own the deluxe re-issues, however, could try to get it cheap. Live At The BBC 1967-1970 is definitely not bad, actually it's an ideal example of how to release radio sessions of any band, but at least after the re-issue series it's become mostly inessential.

Octave had the excellent Driftwood, and a bunch of pieces were at least really good when The Moody Blues played them live. Long Distance Voyager was interesting, but was marred by some extremely uninventive songs throughout. I never really bothered finding The Other Side of Life because Sur La Mer was really horrible.

And then you stumble into this album, a totally unsuspicious record which looks exactly like all the other 80s and 90s Moody Blues CDs: a beautiful cover, songs at around 4-5 minutes length, the same line-up as before. The songs follow the Long Distance Voyager template as well: without Mike Pinder's classicistic visions everything is mostly dominated by Justin Hayward's and John Lodge's country influences. I deliberately speak of 'country influences' because they are hidden really deeply inside of these songs. At some time in music history, somehow unseen, country music sneaked into pop music and - at least that's how I see things - shaped how most (non-jazz) pop ballads sound today. When I first read reviews in which It's Cold Outside of Your Heart was described as a genuine country love song I was pretty sure that the reviewer didn't know what country music is, but after some listens I realised he was totally correct. The country leanings are present, but you actually perceive them as pop - perhaps only because the vocals lack the thick American twang. And already this aforementioned song, often described as an incredibly kitschy piece of music, totally manages to elate me. Just like in Caravan's clever The World is Yours the electric piano doubles the bass guitar and gives the song a deeply resonating fundament. Lyrics-wise it's a standard love song, absolutely pathetic - "and out of the blue it was over, and how would you think I would survive?" - but it works. The heavily sustained Gibson-ES335-notes in the beginning recall Justin Hayward's trademark guitar tone of the early 1970s, his melodies are catchy and Patrick Moraz adds some really tasteful string pads and occasional fluttering arpeggios.

Blue World, Meet Me Halfway (one of my three favorites on The Present), Running Water and Going Nowhere are all of a piece, even though they were composed by different band members. There's a certain wishfulness among them, a feeling of nostalgia streaming out of them like incense or the smell of trees and flowers in the spring. Importantly, this kind of atmosphere only unfolds if you listen to the tracks completely; after all, this is an album which is really meant to be an album and which develops from one piece to the next. Long Distance Voyager was similar, of course, but The Present is more laid-back, it's more relaxed.

Gemini Dream was a stompy upbeat disco pop tune, for instance. The pendant to this is Sitting At The Wheel, a loud and bombastic rock'n'roll song - but a song with an atmosphere, with a slight psychedelic aura shouting through the joyful mania of the reverberated vocals. Not a 1960s type of acoustic LSD trip, but rather a late 1970s glam-fueled Bowie psychedelia combined with the wall of sound production of George Harrison's All Things Must Pass 3LP. It's surprising that the Moody Blues didn't collaborate with former Bowie producer Tony Visconti until The Other Side of Life; this record sounds so much more like Visconti's acclaimed works than catastrophies like Sur La Mer. On this piece however, produced by Pip Williams, Graeme Edge's drums rattle and crash (this guy seemingly had a rebirth when Tony Clarke left the fold). In regular intervals Moraz throws in some of his keyboard pyrotechnics, and in the end Justin Hayward provides a rejoicing and playful slide guitar solo throughout the fade-out. It's definitely a hyperactive song, and maybe not the best on this album, but absolutely fine nonetheless.

Graeme Edge's ominous 22,000 Days, with the deep baritone harmony vocals singing about how many days an average man lives, always seemed to me as a novelty song from a retirement home; maybe you need to be older than 30 to understand songs like these. On this album Edge contributed the calming Going Nowhere, a song with a considerable amount of British folk hidden deep inside the song - at least when you take away the 80s synthesizers and huge drums -, which convinces me a lot more. Ray Thomas is on lead vocals, the melodies are resonant and well-suited for Thomas' voice, and the instrumental arrangements in the intro and the extended outro (including multitracked soaring electric guitars and tasteful Moog lead sounds) do the rest to ensure my pleasure. Gorgeous stuff!

Ray Thomas is again on bord with the two-part track I Am/Sorry. I Am is an esoteric piece of chant, flutes and keyboards which recalls In Search of the Lost Chord a little bit. A track like this could have been a failure on a 1980s album, but the haunting whispering in the background, Moraz' synth effects and the mighty pitch bend before Sorry (listen to it - really!) competently save the song. Sorry begins in a contemplative way with delicate finger-picking and a good melody until it turns into an uplifting rock shuffle with space to boot for harmonica licks (by Thomas) and some fiddly Moog solos in the outro (by Moraz).

The real big surprise, however, is John Lodge's mini-epic Hole In The World/Under My Feet/Hole In The World (reprise). Again, about two thirds of the seven minutes (namely Under My Feet) are pop rock - probably a less successful example of pop rock by the means of this album, weren't it for the great sense of melody in Hole In The World and the competent harmony vocals in the chorus of Under My Feet. Hole In The World is a tight instrumental march with a monotonous percussive synthesizer drone and fat drums, used as the basis for an excellent guitar solo by Justin Hayward which is partly echoed by some synthesizers. (If the Icelandic prog band Þursaflokkurinn weren't totally unheard-of, I would have accused John Lodge of copying their 1981 piece Ranimosk.) The rejoicing fanfare, however, at 1:28, with the lead guitar being dangerously close to the threshold of emptying in amplifier feedback, is a truly magic moment - and this moment is wisely revisited after the last chorus of Under My Feet until the extended fade-out. A little piece of trivia: at 3:34 Moraz adds a little burst of Hammond organ to the mix. As far as I'm concerned this is one of the shortest Hammond organ contributions to any rock album I know, and - apart from the intro of Procession and the weird French TV gig from 1970 - the only Hammond organ use on any Moody Blues album.

All in all I enjoy listening to this album quite a lot - especially during a warm summer evening's reverie, using the record as an activator of both real and fictive memories. There are no disco moments which could wake me from the sweet harmony of this album, it's totally consistent and full of intelligent and well-crafted pop music. I really think that The Present is absolutely able to stand up to the classic seven Moody Blues albums, although - of course - it cannot top masterpieces like To Our Children's Children's Children. Get it if you like the Moody Blues, but if your disappointed by the other Moody Blues records of the 1980s and 1990s. This one truly makes a difference!

"Lovely to See You" - great song. Really, really great song. Should have been a bigger hit. "Never Comes the Day" and "Are You Sitting Comfortably?" are two other fantastic tracks I never tire of hearing. "So Deep Within You (a rare Mike Pinder love song)" and "Lazy Day" are also highly enjoyable. But "Dear Diary" - eh, nice concept and some clever commentary at the end, but not a terribly interesting melody (and I say this as a person who considers Ray Thomas his favorite Moody). "Send Me No Wine" isn't as bad as some make it out to be, but it's not a classic, either. "To Share Our Love" is a decent rocker from Lodge which sounds great on listening but makes no lasting impression.

And, then...the heresy. I mean, I have no other way to express this. I've always had the strongest feelings about Mike Pinder's compositions of all the Moodies. I either love them or hate them - and for "Have You Heard?", it's not love. I'm sorry - "Now you know that you are real" doesn't really qualify as a worthy lyric in my book. It's a constant problem with Pinder's lyrics - far too much navel-gazing about how "enlightenment" feels. A more liberal worldview is something I have absolutely no problem with - but in his case it can lead to some truly appalling expressions. And I could tolerate the lyrics more readily if the melody was interesting enough - but in this case, it's just not. The same problem resurfaces on "Sun Is Still Shining" and "My Song" - just not that interesting melodically and really bad lyrically ("Moon is still dining with me and you", "I want to sing my song and sing it all day long" - really, Mike, couldn't you find a slightly more "universal" and interesting way to talk about your worldview, something that makes sense in a social statement of some kind?). I know - this is likely to provoke all kinds of negative opinions on this review, and I can understand why. But I will also say that when he hits it right - "Why Is It (We Are Here) and "Out and In" - Pinder writes some of my favorites. And I also know that his skills as an arranger helped shape the Moody sound on songs he didn't write. So my major problem is with some of his compositions - and, unfortunately, while "Have You Heard?" is well-loved by many, it's probably the song of his I have the hardest time with. "The Voyage" is actually quite good, and I listen to it every time I put this disc in my CD player. But "Have You Heard?"...well, I've said enough.

So, while there are some great songs here, as a whole "On the Threshold of a Dream" is more uneven and contains more duds and mediocre material than the remainder of the "Core Seven" albums (plus a certain lack of cohesion present on most of the band's other material in this period). Three stars - not terrible, but certainly not a classic.

When I first listened to live recordings of The Moody Blues from the early 1980s I was amazed how mercilessly Patrick Moraz whipped the band through the concerts. This led to the situation that the keyboard work, with tons of Mellotron even on the mellotronically scarce 80s compositions, was absolutely exciting - but the pieces were played excessively fast, with big power but without lots of feeling.

But there's no need to search for the rare live 80s recordings of The Moody Blues if you want to see them perform in a somewhat rawer way. Caught Live, to me an inexplicably unpopular album, is an excellent proof of that. Especially Graeme Edge is in fine form here, a man whose drumming on Moody Blues studio albums was constantly treated with effects to create a more restrained 'percussion'-like sound.

The pieces on this album are widely known, I don't think there's a lot to talk about them. But the concrete versions of them are absolutely unexpected for everyone who's been used to the studio originals. Peak Hour is a major Mellotron orgy, mostly using the rarely heard 'Hammond organ' registration, featuring some really heavy breakdowns and the unexpectedly accurately performed double-falsetto vocal arrangements by Ray Thomas and John Lodge. I use the word 'unexpectedly' because so many critics complain about the vocals being off-key on this recording. I know that the band itself wasn't satisfied with this concert, but I don't see the reason. It ain't as mellow as the original templates, but instead it's got rock'n'roll and temperament. But if you wish to complain about the accuracy of the performance, don't search for reasons in Ray Thomas' voice - it's mostly Justin Hayward who slurs some notes a wee bit, for instance, in Never Comes The Day, which becomes a veritable folk rocker in this version thanks to the mighty sound of Hayward's Gibson hollowbody guitar. Dr. Livingstone, I Presume and Legend of A Mind shows Mike Pinder in a comically inclined mode, either induced by certain substances or by the great vibes in Royal Albert Hall, stealing the show with the gripping MkII brass fanfares and some wicked circus-style licks in between. It's notable that the Mellotron, as it frequently did, got detuned during the concert. Mike Pinder compensates the machine, masters the volume and tone regulation without any problems and even gets the most shimmering soundscapes out of that beast in this live context - for keyboarders, this is really inspiring stuff showing how this guy defined the atmosphere of this music 'simply' by choosing the fitting inversions of the chords and playing them at the correct volume.

In terms of sound this album is totally satisfying, quite comparable with the reverberated and somewhat blurry, but nonetheless differentiated sound of Barclay James Harvest's Live. The striking difference is that Caught Live works without the frequently pathetic vocal delivery and, most importantly, without John Lees' annoying double string bending which he pulls off all over the whole concert. In spite of Caught Live's increased roughness the band perfectly manages to mime the five-man-orchestra on stage as well, blurring the borders between the different instruments to create a homogenous matter of sound.

As an addition to the live concert the record also adds a bunch of studio outtakes from around 1968, songs which either didn't fit on Days of Future Passed or In Search of the Lost Chord. At first it seems a bit sloppy to just stuff some remains from the studio at the end of a live album, but - if you think about it - it's a good idea, good in its pragmatism. The concert doesn't fit on one LP, there are still some really good (!) songs in the vault, and why shouldn't such an arduous main dish be followed by a creamy dessert? I always listen this album from the beginning until the end, which is actually a good sign. Long Summer Days is a beautiful ballad by Justin Hayward which came into being before Days of Future Passed, but which already features Hayward's typical pensive lyrics on times of day or, in this case, on seasons, along with some simple but effective flute notes and full harmony vocals. No mellotron, however, just like in the soulful piano jazz ballad Please Think About It, which - along with I Really Haven't Got The Time - is another Mike Pinder song stemming from the time when the arty R&B of the Denny-Laine-led band line-up was transformed into the more symphonic sound of the Days of Future Passed era.

The 1968 tracks Gimme A Little Something, a rare John Lodge song with Justin Hayward on lead vocals, and the genuinely folky King And Queen could have gotten lost in the variegation of In Search Of The Lost Chord, but are on a similarly high artistic level. King And Queen, as well as the excellent pop elegy What Am I Doing Here?, indulge in the gloomy royal fairytale atmosphere of Are You Sitting Comfortably? with clerically arranged vocal harmonies and a lovely Mellotron flute lilting on top of this euphony. Gimme A Little Something is slightly schizophrenic between the loudly wailing chorus and the sparse folky verses which profit a lot from the gentle cascades in the vocal melody during the pre-chorus.

There's no problem about these bonus tracks - they rather add to the total content of the album instead of appearing cheap or distracting from the basic thread. All in all, the live component of Caught Live definitely floats on sweetly aromatic clouds of smoke, and in multiple colors, but nonetheless has stood the test of time very well. A definite recommendation for everyone who appreciates at least one of the early Moody Blues albums as a big masterpiece, a careful recommendation even to those who felt the band to be too soft in the studio - they're pretty rough here, and that's what you have to be prepared for if you want to get maximum inspiration and atmosphere out of this CD.

If I could find any real room for complaint, it would be that Ray Thomas's presence seems to be diminishing further. There was precious little room for his flute playing on either "Octave" or "Long Distance Voyager", and that remains true here - he only contributes anything instrumentally or vocally on the two songs he wrote (the ambient "I Am" and the final-straw finale "Sorry") and the Graeme Edge-penned "Going Nowhere", where his vocals punctuate the lyrical melancholy of the song's protagonist nicely. No other vocals, lead or backing, anywhere that I can detect - which unfortunately would be a precursor of the band's next two albums, where he gets backing vocals one one track TOTAL between the two albums, no leads, and no instrumental contributions whatsoever.

Still, at least Thomas is around for this recording, and the material as a whole is strong enough to make his absences a bit less frustrating (though it would have been a nice counterpoint to have him play some flute in the John Lodge march bit "Hole in the World", play flute instead of having Moraz's synth flute on "Blue World" or add his vocals to "Meet Me Halfway"). "Blue World" and "Meet Me Halfway" are always enjoyable and among the band's best work (the latter is a particularly positive, rousing track); "It's Cold Outside Your Heart" is a beautiful lament, "Under My Feet" is a catchy if perhaps slight piece of John Lodge drama, and "Sitting at the Wheel", though seeming perhaps a bit ordinary on early listens, somehow gets better with time (not a classic, but not nearly as unsubstantial as one might initially think). Thomas's compositions are probably his best since the "Core 7" albums, and while "Running Water" may be a bit too fluffy for some it's nonetheless pretty in a way the band would struggle to repeat in coming years.

After the synthpop of "The Other Side of Life" and "Sur La Mer", the band would try to get back to this more organic sound. Unfortunately, the results were not nearly as even as they were here, but it was perhaps heartening in a way to see that they realized that this was a good direction to go in based on the sounds and moods in this little gem. Four stars, without reservation.

Unfortunately, "Octave" falls into the opposite category. Many of the songs, taken individually, work quite well ("Driftwood", "I'll Be Level With You", even "Survival", "Had to Fall in Love" and "Steppin' in a Slide Zone", which have gotten decidedly mixed reviews from many on this site fall in this category for me), but taken together the album just doesn't work.

And it's not just that it's not a concept album like the aforementioned "Children". Much of it, believe or not, comes down to the sound for me. I realize the band had to adapt to fit with the times, and Mellotrons had to give way to synthesizers, but many of the songs have too much instrumentation mixed at roughly the same level, making the music "busy" to the point of becoming fuzzy, murky or even mushy sounding. "Slide Zone" may be most emblematic of that, but even slower numbers like "Survival", "The Day We Meet Again" and "One Step into the Light" suffer from this as well. It's hard to pick out the individual instruments sometimes because there's just too much going on in roughly the same aural range. This could be handled in small doses, but when 60-70% of the album is suffering from the same ailment, it becomes overwhelming. And while Ray Thomas was my favorite Moody, his two contributions on this album are probably the worst he submitted to the band's cause - I hit "skip" every time they come up, and although "Under Moonshine" may not be nearly as trite as "I'm You're Man", it too is overwhelmed with heavy production which makes this already borderline-weak track basically unlistenable.

I give some kudos to Graeme Edge for "I'll Be Level With You", a song which makes me fondly recall "After You Came" from "Every Good Boy Deserves Favor"; however, it too gets awfully murky-sounding at the end with the keyboards at too close a sonic frequency to the guitars and the rhythm section getting basically overwhelmed by it all. And that seems to happen as a whole far too often on this album for me - the production/mixing/whatever just kills the material, which was probably overall the weakest the band had submitted to date even though some songs were quite good. So, between the overall weakness of the material (especially Ray's two duds) and the horrid sound, I can only offer two stars. This was, however, the band's nadir until the mid-80's, as "Octave"'s two followups, "Long Distance Voyager" and "The Present" offer some great material presented quite pleasantly.