| Released in 1969, just two years after the groundbreaking Days Of Future Passed, the Moodies' third collection kicked off in high gear with a gutsy Justin Hayward rocker--"Lovely To See You"--before seguing into typically cosmic territory. As ever, keyboardist Mike Pinder contributed the most unabashedly trippy numbers here: both "The Voyage" and "Have You Heard" float along dreamily on a raft of dope smoke and good karma--though the album also found the group moving away from Oriental and Indian influences, in favour of more traditional Western melodies and instrumentation, notably, Pinder's Mellotron. As ever, there's a slightly bittersweet quality to these songs, a sense of melancholy--as if the band were aware, even as they celebrated the counterculture's heyday, of its actual ephemerality. In this vein, Hayward's "Never Comes The Day" set the stage for the stoic, devotional love songs of his later work, while John Lodge's "To Share Our Love" betrayed the influence of the 1960s British blues scene upon his song writing. All in all, a strong, diverse set. --Andrew McGuire |
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