TO OUR CHILDREN'S CHILDREN'S CHILDREN

Back in the late 1960's, the Moody Blues were a band that just kept chucking out album after album, each one having to deal with some brand of ''concept'' if you will. I usually never care what the concept is as long as the music output is at least decent and honourable. For awhile, I'm led into thinking this is a masterpiece...

This album has Graeme Edge's strongest songs, ''Higher and Higher'' and ''Beyond''. While the former contains the awkward sounding poetry, both are psychedelic splendors with some of the best instrumental performances to grace the Moody Blues canon. In fact, ''Beyond'' kicks off a three song sprint of delight as ''Out and In'' and ''Gypsy'' bring power to the album without being too overpowering.

The rest is a mixed bag. Before ''Beyond'', the songs are fairly decent if not good. ''Eyes of a Child'' sticks out the most here as it's a two parter (''Floating'' separates the two parts) with both parts sounding like night and day (part 1 is soft and acoustic while part 2 is typical of John Lodge's upbeat writing style). Unfortunately, after ''Eternity Road'', CHILDREN'S just plods in soft rock mediocrity; ''Watching and Waiting'' really takes the cake as it's as noneventful as watching water evaporate.

This has the typical Moody Blues sound, so if you're familiar with other (likely earlier) albums, CHILDREN'S shouldn't be too much of a surprise. Nothing earth-shattering, but nothing offensive; it's only slightly better than averagy-average.