THE OTHER SIDE OF LIFE

"The Other Side of Life" provided the Moody Blues with a huge commercial boost and allowed them to continue releasing progressively less interesting material over the next decade, until even the new-found pop fans had quietly slid away. Suddenly the group has turned into a singles machine, with a few standout tracks and not much else of worth.

The two standouts are "Your Wildest Dreams" and "The Other Side of Life". The first is a direct descendant of "The Voice" from "Long Distance Voyager", while the title cut is simply the best thing they've done since the glory years, a blues inspired and deliberately slow paced, almost plodding, yet strangely swinging, number in which repetition of motifs only serves to enhance the effect. Hayward sings with dignity and plays a short but blazing lead solo. The most impressive aspect is that it really doesn't sound like anything they have done before to these ears.

As mentioned, most of the rest is throwaway, although "Rock and Roll Over You" adapts the Lodge rocker to the late 1980s synth pop with reasonable success, and the closer is a brilliant Lodge melody, "It may be a Fire", which sits comfortably along with the band's classic ballads.

I would rather have an album with 3 excellent songs and one good song, even if the rest is drivel, than one with 9 decent songs. This means I come down on the other side of 2.5 stars.