ON THE THRESHOLD OF A DREAM

This is the third album of the Classic Seven (1967-1972). I think it's perhaps the most uneven of them too. No, that would be Every Good Boy, or nevermind, they ALL have weaker moments! Here there are even three in a row: 'Send Me No Wine', 'To Share Our Love' and 'So Deep Within You'. Nothing but fillers to me. Oh, and so is 'Lazy Day' too. But the rest of this rather short (approx. 37 min.) album is very enjoyable and features some definitive classics. Sonically the Moodies are "on the top of their game" and true wizards in the studio, but after the superb In Search Of The Lost Chord the unevenness in songwriting is striking. Now attention to the good tracks.

The opening 'In The Beginning' is a typical experimental collache opener featuring electric gimmickry and poem-reading that is directly followed by a fast catchy song, 'Lovely To See You'. Justin Hayward was always very good at them. Wonderful, cheerful melodies and vocal harmonies. Then comes Ray Thomas' moody 'Dear Diary', as charming as ever. Lodge and Pinder are responsible for the mentioned three fillers (hope I remember correctly), after them Hayward shines in the ballad department. 'Never Comes The Day' is among the finest MB songs, it has similar grandiosity as 'Question' two albums later.

'Are You Sitting Comfortably' is a slow, dreamy song, just lovely. Graeme Edge comes forth with his familiar poem-reading on 'The Dream', which seamlessly changes into Mike Pinder's magnum opus of the album, 'Have You Heard pt 1 - The Voyage - Have You Heard pt 2'. Quite useless to cut it into three tracks because it's actually a single unity that must be heard as one. Pinder was the mystic of the band, searching deeper levels in his (usually album closing) songs featuring gorgeous mellotron playing (the instrumental 'Voyage' section). This formula was repeated in Every Good Boy's 'My Song'.

How to rate a classic album this uneven? I'm turning into "essential" criteria... As all of the seven albums, this is one that any MB fan must listen to.