A QUESTION OF BALANCE

"A Question of Balance" is The Moodies album that opened up the new decade being the album that they released in 1970. It is interesting that the album's intention was to focus more on songs that could be played easier in concert, thus it strips away a lot of the psychedelia that was heavily present on their previous albums. As such, it stands out more among the many albums that the band released during this time, their "classic seven", which seem to almost melt together, almost making it difficult to discern one from another, yet all containing some excellent music, though much of it seems to sound dated after all of these years.

This album stands out among their early albums for a couple of reasons. First of all, there is a noticeable amount of variety among the tracks and each track stands out even though the music flows from one track to another most of the way through. The variety present on this album stems from the fact that each and every member seems to contribute songs evenly throughout the album with the exception of Justin Hayward who contributes 3 songs out of the 10 total tracks. This variety however, does not take away from the cohesiveness of the album as , for the most part, it has a warmer tone that seems to connect better to an audience, not buried in the usual synths and orchestral layers that many of their previous albums had.

But, that is the thing with "A Question of Balance" and is the thing that sets it apart from these albums even though it fell in the middle of these classic albums that the band is famous for. Starting off with their big hit "The Question", you instantly hear the difference as the song is quite acoustic sounding. Another thing you might notice is if you have their amazing collection "This is the Moody Blues", you will notice that the version on this album is quite a bit different from the one on that collection. This version was made for this album as the mellotron and orchestra are taken out of the mix making it even more acoustic and concert-friendly. The other, more familiar, version was the version used for the single that was released before this album. I love both versions of this song and it remains one of my favorite tracks from the band.

The first side of the album features a song written by each member of the band. "The Question" is from who has pretty much become the lead man of the band, Justin Hayward. After this, Mike Pinder's "How Is It (We Are Here)" which brings the mellotron back in, but manages to keep the track simple and interesting. Another familiar track follows, "The Tide Rushes In", Ray Thomas' contribution for the first side of the album. This one is a distinctive Thomas track, more of a nostalgic sounding track and one that also fits well on the album, melancholic, yet a nice tempo. The flute laden "Don't You Fell Small" which is Graeme Edge's song, is a bit closer to the previous album's sounds, but still all performed by the musicians without any orchestra, and allowing a bit more instrumentatlism to come into play. All of the members participate in the vocals on this song. The last track on the first half is John Lodge's contribution "The Tortoise and The Hare". The lyrics are based around the famous story, the song is the most upbeat on this side with the guitars being allowed to shine through.

There is no doubt that you are listening to a Moody Blues album here, but you will notice a difference in the sound as you get into the 2nd half of the album. This continues with Hayward's 2nd contribution "It's Up to You" which has a strong rock feel to it that borrows heavily from the sound of the time, specifically The Beatles and others. A nice, smooth track follows, Lodge's "Minstrel's Song", which has the folk-ish sound to it as hinted at by the title, but also retains a sing-a-long, nice rock attitude in the chorus, though it does get a bit repetitive at the end. Quite a lovely track though. Hayward returns one last time contributing his 3rd track "Dawning of the Day", a more complex, yet acoustic- based track that adds in some great flute, mellotron and piano flourishes during the instrumental break. Mike Pinder's somewhat famous track "Melancholy Man" follows this. This track flows along quite smoothly and softly and is a fan favorite and also the longest track on the album at almost 6 minutes. It has a nice melody that will stick with you as you become familiar with it, you'll find it playing over and over in your head, but not in an annoying way. This is another personal favorite of mine, and for me, it embodies the warm and safe sound of the band, but adding in that folk element among the lovely instrumentation that at time gets pretty thick along with the descending wordless vocals and layers of warm musical sound. The last track "The Balance" is written by both Graeme Edge and Ray Thomas and contains the expected poetry/spoken word that you hear in their early work. The music is light and mostly acoustic accented by the usual psychedelic vocals, but kept in the background. The verses are spoken and the chorus is sung. The track fades out as levels of vocals and instruments build. This track is probably the one that hasn't aged as well as the others on this album.

The music on this album does have more heart than previous albums and the listener will feel more connected to the sound. However, it is still undoubtedly The Moody Blues, you still have the nice soft and cozy sound that envelops you like a warm blanket, but this time, unhindered by the over-produced sounds and hoopla of previous albums. Ray Thomas doesn't contribute the amount of songs that he usually does and his presence seems to be less this time around, but that probably also accounts for the warmer and less busy sound of the album. It probably also accounts for the fact that most of the music on this album has aged a lot better than most of the music on their other albums from this period of time. In the end, this album, to me, stands out better than the others in this early part of their career as it seems to be less busy and more focused. There are parts of it that haven't aged that well, but for the most part, overall, the album has aged much better than many of their other albums. To me, this album comes in as the 2nd best of their early career, not far behind their classic "Days of Future Past". This ends up as a solid 4 star album, which at time even creeps into 4.5 star territory. The Moody Blues thus prove they can fit into a new decade, yet mostly still retain their signature sound, just without so much of the "needless" orchestration that they usually heap on.