SEVENTH SOJOURN

The Moody Blues

Crossover Prog

3.75 | 337 ratings

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I'm not the greatest Moodies fan. Tuesday Afternoon and Nights In White Satin are wonderful songs but do they need the full orchestral treatment on Days Of Future Passed? House Of Four Doors on In Search Of The Lost Chord is an interesting atmospheric piece but do we need the dreary Timothy Leary Is Dead dividing the two sections of it? In The Threshold Of A Dream starts well with In The Beginning and Lovely To See You, but then gets bogged down with songs like Dear Diary until we get to the back end of the album where the really good stuff is (Dream and Have You Heard?). The Apollo Moon landing was technologically breathtaking. However, songs like Floating and Candle Of Life on To Our Children's Children's Children appear not to break any songwriting ground. A Question Of Balance and Every Boy Deserves A Favour are one song albums.

Which brings us to the Moody Blues album Seventh Sojourn, which is by far their best. According to the notes on the album sleeve the band members remember it as their most unpleasant recording experience. If that's the case I wish they had had more unpleasant previous recording experiences.

The opener, Lost In A Lost World is dark and atmospheric. Mike Pinder introduces an instrument called a Chamberlain, a type of mellotron, which makes it's presence felt in the middle section. New Horizons is a beautiful acoustic ballad from Justin Hayward in top form. The lushly orchestrated Thomas composition For My Lady is a sweet lullaby. Lodge chips in with the haunting Isn't Life Strange. You And Me speeds the tempo up with some nice bass work from John Lodge. The Land Of Make-Believe is another beautiful acoustic ballad from Justin Hayward. More Chamberlain and acoustic guitar on the Pinder number, When You're A Free Man is followed by the best composition Lodge ever wrote, I'm Just A Singer (In A Rock And Roll Band).

Romantic and melodic with the best rocking number the band came up with, Seventh Sojourn is a fantastic album which never lets up. With a six year hiatus before the band recorded again they should have got better. Mike Pinder exits the band and the great Patrick Moraz take over the keys. That they didn't, I don't know the answer.

iluvmarillion | 4/5 | 2020-1-23

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