IN SEARCH OF THE LOST CHORD

A weaker second half spoils the album for me; whatever that pinging sound in the middle of ''The Best Way to Travel'' is, I hate it and it needs to stop. ''Om'' has nice Eastern influences, but I feel it lasts a bit too long. ''Voices in the Sky'' might not me impressive at first, but if you've heard any later Hayward songs, you might pick out ''Voices in the Sky'' in them.

One major positive I can say for LOST CHORD is that it helped me gain appreciation for the Moody Blues when I was struggling to figure out FUTURE PASSED. No orchestra is here, so the songs aren't too plugged up sound-wise. The songs are slightly poppier (see ''Ride My See-Saw''), but many like ''House of Four Doors'' have that progressive element that we want out of the Moody Blues.

Ray Thomas has never been in finer form in terms of songwriting. ''Legend of a Mind'' is as close to legendary as you can get with the Moodies; the Mellotron in the middle is brilliant and perhaps the best usage of the instrument. ''Dr. Livingston'' is a more nonoffensive thing and while not great, it trumps most anything Ray later came up with (Moodies or solo).

The first two Moody Blues albums are a great one-two punch in the crossover/proto-prog rock realm. If you couldn't take the orchestra in FUTURE PASSED, LOST CHORD is a sigh of relief. Highly recommended.