ON THE THRESHOLD OF A DREAM

If you haven't heard this album yet, you're in for a treat. Alluding to the listener's likely state of mind, "On The Threshold of a Dream" features a brilliant succession of songs, instrumental segues and spoken poems. I haven't heard a more cogent case for THE MOODIES' unusual approach to songwriting -- allowing each of the five members to follow their own muse within the context of a group effort -- than on this album. GRAEME EDGE's poetry has seldom shone so bright, MIKE PINDER's "Have You Heard" adds a brilliant shade of pink to the Blue machine, and JUSTIN HAYWARD (usually good for one hit) scores a hat trick with "Lovely To See You," "Never Comes The Day" and "Are You Sitting Comfortably." The records that followed no doubt strove for the same happy union, but seldom delivered on the promise of their portentous openings. Edge's "In The Beginning" promises much, advocating freedom from the machines, or more specifically freedom from the mechanized world around us. "Lovely To See You" accepts us into the fold, and from there the concept gives way to a series of vignettes: "Dear Diary," "Send Me No Wine" and a pair of psychedelic rock tracks to add some muscle. What ties "Threshold" together is its swift pacing, using seamless segues to connect the band's individual contributions into a cohesive whole. This technique prevents a musical morass from forming, a problem that plagued subsequent albums. The second side also gets off to a quick start with the single "Never Comes The Day," the sort of pretty acoustic daydreaming that helped define THE MOODIES, a field revisited on "Are You Sitting Comfortably." However, I'd argue it's the closing combination of "Have You Heard" and the instrumental "The Voyage" that bring "Threshold" to the brink of brilliance. MIKE PINDER has always been the most likely of the five to write outside the band's established idiom, and here he stumbles upon a musical epiphany of heroic proportions, sandwiched around the albums' best orchestrations. So if you're on the outside looking in, clueless to THE MOODIES' attraction, cross through "The Threshold" and join the party.