Progarchives, the progressive rock ultimate discography
The Moody Blues - A Question of Balance CD (album) cover

A QUESTION OF BALANCE

The Moody Blues

 

Crossover Prog

3.54 | 353 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

ZowieZiggy
Prog Reviewer
3 stars I might be a veteran, but still I did not cope with the early works of the Moodies.

My first purchase of theirs was their single hit "Melancholy Man" from this album. I will discuss this great song later on in my review. If ever you have read some of my Moodies's review, you have noticed that I am not a huge fan of their orchestral music.

The band has released some great songs, but I couldn't really be enthusiast about their albums as a whole. For sure, they were innovative in terms of concept albums. Few bands did produce such works in these ancient times. I guess that only for this, the Moodies deserve a hat's off.

But even as such, they don't belong to my preferred bands. Vocal melodies are at time pleasant. Musical arrangements might be of good support (especially during "And the Tide Rushes in") but there are little songs to be kicked out. Except the excellent "Don't You Feel Small" which features some great fluting (but unfortunately too short.).

A fave from this album is by no doubt the very good rocking "Tortoise and the Hare". A totally different song in style. How many of this one did the band truly recorded? Very few indeed. And this one is very well achieved. Maybe somewhat simplistic but far better than the Fab Four oriented "It's Up To You".

But the worse is also sharing the bill, unfortunately. The best thing to do when "Minstrel's Song" begins is to "Press Next"T. What a painful song.It should be forbidden.Dreadful, really.

This song is getting compensated with "Dawning is the Day" which is a rather pleasant moment of this album. Nice vocals, great acoustic guitar as well as percussion.

Now. THE ONE. At least as far as I'm concerned. Each time I listen to this song I am brought not only into my early teens (there are hundreds of great songs from the early seventies for this), but this "slow" (as we used to call such a tempo) do mean so much to me. So many sweeties dancing with me . some thirty five years ago. I guess that some of you (the oldest ones) can understand what I could have felt. And I still feel the same tonight. But I am just a melancholy man, that's what I am. This is a great, great song : believe me, believe me.

This album is of course no masterpiece but some songs are really worth your attention. One gigantic number still. Three stars.

ZowieZiggy | 3/5 |

MEMBERS LOGIN ZONE

As a registered member (register here if not), you can post rating/reviews (& edit later), comments reviews and submit new albums.

You are not logged, please complete authentication before continuing (use forum credentials).

Forum user
Forum password

Share this THE MOODY BLUES review

Social review comments () BETA







Review related links

Copyright Prog Archives, All rights reserved. | Legal Notice | Privacy Policy | Advertise | RSS + syndications

Other sites in the MAC network: JazzMusicArchives.com — jazz music reviews and archives | MetalMusicArchives.com — metal music reviews and archives

Donate monthly and keep PA fast-loading and ad-free forever.