Favorite Moody Blues Album
I love all of the Moody Blues Albums up until the Seventh Sojourn.I have yet to further explore anything after that.Obviousley Days of Future Passed was the masterpiece that got them started,but if I had to pick a favorite this would be the one.It has a very natural feel to it as if the whole band was on the same page with what the finished product would be.Very very mellow music.I was only 18 when i first heard this one and I have very fond memories of that time.As a matter of fact it is hard to look back around that time in my life and not think of this album.You can press play and listen to it all the way thru so it is hard to pick out highlights.My favorite part of the album is from "Voices in the Sky" up until "The Actor".It is impossible for me to listen to these four songs and not feel somewhat nostalgic about the place I was at when I first heard them.Not that it doesn't work as a whole album,the second half just seems to have some extra mellow sixties magic to it.Highly recommended for those of you whose ears bleed when they hear death metal or gangster rap(In other words bad music)Long live the Moody Blues.

disappointed
I don't know where this CD was made, but it is a terrible recording. Not worth the free shipping.

Sweet Flashback
What better way to journey back to the fun and foolishness of Pyschedelia than with a talented troupe of young Brits? You might laugh at the faux oratorio format of "House of Four Walls" or the overindulgence in sitar throughout the album, but it's really more a matter of innocence than of pretense. And there are many moments of true beauty, rare in rock in any era, including "Voices in the Sky", and the joy of "Ride My Seesaw" is irresistible. Stuck as we are with the dreariness of much post-modern rock, it's nice to be reminded of the multi-instrumental virtuosity of Moody Blues arrangements, not all that far away from the colorful lushness of some operatic and classical music. And this is the kind of album meant to be listened to from beginning to end, pretty much conceived of as a suite. "You can fly", the guys intone, "High as a kite, if you want to/Faster than light, if you want to/Speeding through The Universe/Thinking is the best way to travel." Thinking with your ears, that is, and in this day and at my age, it's a bit safer than mescaline.

The acid test of a new creative direction
The Moodies would find out here if they'd succeed in a major revamping of their sound. Most Moodies fans know that they started out with Denny Laine at the helm, sounding like if the Rolling Stones were less punky and more bluesy (try "Early Blues"). Then along came "Days Of Future Passed", but that was no indicator of what was to come--concept albums using full orchestra seldom mark a major change. The tend to be a "special treat". Hell, you take out the orchestral and spoken interludes and you end up with a pretty short album. But now it was back to doing song albums. And this one proved that the Moodies we know today were here to stay--a whole new sound under an existing name. Take a Graeme Edge poem that ramps up in intensity until it ends in hysterical laughter and segue into a driving but melodic "Ride My See Saw" and off we go. Next is the elementary school folk sound of "Dr. Livinstone I Presume" where Ray Thomas makes like Stephen Foster. I'll reserve comment on the "House Of Four Doors/ Legend Of a Mind" medley--it was trendy back in those days to see Timothy Leary as a heroic fugure. Then we open side 2 (vinyl version" with Justin Hayward's now-famous baritone in "Voices In the Sky". Keyboardist Mike Pinder gnext gives us "The Best Way To Travel", which has an annoying toot-toot-toot figure in the last verse that makes you think there's a bearing going bad in your player. "The Actor" is by far the best song on the album, proving that you can mix an acoustic guitar and flute and still have a good solid beat. No, Jethro Tull did NOT do it first. I suppose "The Voice/ Om" can be forgiven--those were days when it was fashionable to think that Western culture was an abomination and Eastern was the way to go. Rather than take the "raga-rock" direction, the Moodies did like the Beatles and built this song in that ole Subcontinental style from the ground up. But with the exception of that and the Leary hymn, this was the way they were to go over several albums. And thereby avoiding becoming the "Also-Rolling Stones" and carving a niche with an immediately recognizable sound. Maybe they've never been truly rock and roll in the true sense. Graeme Edge didn't trash hotel rooms. John Lodge didn't get say "I'm sick of being nothing but Hayward's tenor harmony" and walk out for a solo career--he's still there. Ray Thomas didn't die of an o.d.--he retired like any working man. Which is why I can draw my own pension and still listen to the same act I heard on the radio as a college undergrad. Neil Young once said "It's better to burn out 'cause rust never sleeps", but that ideology only impresses the very young and very angry.

A Classic but dated
This album by the Moodies is a bit dated what with its references to Timothy Leary and so on. Very current at the time but not now. A different world today, unfortunately. However, that said, the usual Moody Blues attention to engineering sound, good melodic lines, and so on.