A QUESTION OF BALANCE

Another highly memorable album cover for the Moodies.' Question' got to No.2 in the UK singles charts, making it the highest charting single by the line up featuring Justin Hayward and John Lodge. 'Nights in White Satin' managed to enter that chart in 1967, 1972 and 1979, spending a total of 34 weeks on it,as opposed to the latters 12, so arguably 'Nights' is their most successful single. No question, 'question' is good (sorry). But for me, the stand out track is the following, 'How is it we are here', by Mike Pinder. His use of the mellotron on that song is eerie, and when it gets into the main hook middle of the song, I just have to crank up the volume ... it's awesome! This is one you WANT the neighbours to hear, it's just so excellent.

'And the tide rushes in' slows down the pace, as Ray, with great sincerity and in earnest, sings this rousing and reflective song, accompanied by some pretty acoustic guitar playing (bravo, Justin). But then, the album starts to fizzle out, with a couple of more 'average' songs (good, but not great), i.e.,'Don't you feel small', and 'Tortoise and the hare'. The second side features some good songs generally, the strongest being; 'Minstrels Song', which is a rather calming, warm-fuzzy glow type of song; 'Dawning is the day', a mini-epic of a song featuring some nice flute playing, and 'Melancholy Man' has some nice keyboards from the consistenly good/excellent Mike Pinder. The opening and closing songs of the side are rather average. But there's enough quality here to make it a passable 4* effort.