A QUESTION OF BALANCE

At this stage I've ceased to expect anything that I would consider too exciting, God forbid even a little dangerous, from the Moody Blues. Album after album I have subjected myself to the Moodies but the end result is just the same. The overall feeling from these guys is a tepid and nonchalant one as I move from album to album. Not that I actually hate them, no, that would be perfect, but no such luck. As it is I have to dig deep to be fair to the Moodies, fair and as nondescript as I can with some tongue in cheek tone thrown in to stop those at the back from falling asleep, but just to get the feeling across. Back at the plot then... The previous Moody Blues release To Our Children's, Children's, Children would appear to be have been the high water mark for this band as far as I'm concerned. That album was definitely vivid and even engaging, the theme was convincing and the music, and especially the lyrics, came across with a poignant rush toward the end. So it's A Question of Balance then. It could have been a question of whether the Moody Blues should have have packed away their instruments by the close of the sixties, as that question is not so rhetorical. But rather than ask questions of themselves they should have just gone off and joined, or even started a hippie commune on the Isle of Wight instead. Singing songs around camp fires, living in blue coloured and moody like mud huts, eating rice and smoking good blow, drinking mulled wine and watered down whiskey. Because then that would have been forgotten about yet the memories would have remained. The memories would have morphed and grown into legend and became more than what they actually were through the hazy laze of time. Unfortunately for the Moodies, their albums, many of them, are just too caught up in a static time, this one a touch too much regressive, as they lacked the edge to create something truly fascinating. Had they been just memories, then imagine what they would be like... (2.5 stars)