A QUESTION OF BALANCE

This is an album of great promise as it starts off with the classic "Question", possibly the best Moodies song with a great bass line under the jangling acoustic guitar chords, the orchestral crashes and the fantastic slow middle section. (Interestingly in World Cup year, this song was beaten to number one by the England World Cup Squad's "Back Home"). Unfortunately the rest of the album does not live up to this standard. "Question" fades out and leads into the intro of "How is it we are here", which I found almost comical after the brilliance of the previous song. "And the tide rushes in" is a nice ballad written by Ray Thomas after an argument with his ex-wife. The final song "The balance", which is basically another Edge poem, has a wonderful chorus, but the rest of the songs are nothing special. This is a competent Moody Blues album, but not up to the standard of earlier efforts such as "Days of Future Passed" and "In Search of the Lost Chord".

The extras on this special edition include a different, earlier version of "Question" (recorded within 24 hours of the songs being written and without the orchestral crashes at the beginning) which I think is an improvement on the original and a previously unreleased Pinder song called "Mike's Number One". There are also original mixes of some of the album tracks. Another historical note is that the explorer John Blashford Snell objected to the use of a picture of him on the cover pointing a gun at an elephant, so the image had to be amended to a man without a pith helmet. The CD also includes a 5.1 surround sound mix, but unlike the reissues of Days and Lost Chord, it is only a single CD set (although the notes do mention a "bonus disc").