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Old 01-11-2017, 05:29 PM   #136 (permalink)
Trollheart
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Album title: To Our Children's Children's Children
Artiste: The Moody Blues
Nationality: British
Label: Threshold
Year: 1969
Grade: A
Landmark value: No more so than any other Moody Blues album, I think. Another concept
Tracklisting: Higher and higher/Eyes of a child I/Floating/Eyes of a child II/I never thought I'd live to be a hundred/Beyond/Out and in/Gypsy (of a strange and distant time)/ Eternity Road/Candle of life/Sun is still shining/I never thought I'd live to be a million/Watching and waiting
Comments: I suppose back then it must have seemed like the dawn of a golden age, Man walking on the Moon, and it's this great human event that apparently inspired this album. However, as we know, we did sod-all on the Moon other than blow billions in taxpayer dollars, and Neil Armstrong's first steps seem a long way back now. And they are. Nearly half a century back, would you believe? But the Moodies obviously envisaged some bright future for their children (and their children, and theirs) that so far at least we have completely failed to realise. Well that's the thinking behind the album, but what about the music? “Higher and higher” opens with something like a crash, then a rising noise effect (to signify the launch of the Apollo rocket?) before a choir comes in, then we have a narration against a rocky guitar piece, not bad at all. “Eyes of a child I” is a lot more laidback and gentle, the vocal slowly rising into the tune, then “Floating” is slightly more uptempo, though hardly a rocker. Quite a lot of Beatles in it I would think.

“Eyes of a child II” basically takes the same melody but pumps it up, though it lasts just over a minute, and so does the next one, enigmatically called “I never thought I'd live to be a hundred”, giving us the first Justin Hayward vocal and a nice acoustic guitar accompaniment. They'll come back to this later. The only instrumental is “Beyond”, which is uptempo and catchy, some nice flute mixing with electric guitar, though it then slows down kind of oddly into a keyboard-driven sort of dirge, then, um, comes back to the original theme. Okay. There's some very nice orchestration here, that's not in doubt. The Beatles influence returns with “Out and in”, another ballad, this time with Mike Pinder on vocals. “Gypsy (Of a strange and distant time)” is a bit rockier and gives us Hayward back on vocals while “Eternity Road” tails it back a little, even though there is some good guitar work on it. Some fine fluting too there from Pinder. It fades into “Candle of life”, with the first duet vocal, between Lodge and Hayward. Like the piano line, and the song itself is quite laidback with a sort of bitter edge. Love the orchestration in this.

Nice jangly guitar in “Sun is still shining”, it's quite uptempo in a laidback kind of way, god work on the tambourine at the end. It leads into the followup to “I never thought I'd live to be a hundred”, which this time is suffixed by “a million” but lasts only thirty-four seconds and is the penultimate track, as “Watching and waiting” takes us out easily, very gentle and relaxed, with a fine vocal from Hayward.

Favourite track(s): I pretty much like everything here.
Least favourite track(s):
Overall impression: Good album. Nothing terribly special really that I can see, but pointing the way towards a development in the Moody Blues' sound that would go on to stand them in good stead as the wave of progressive rock began to break over England, and then the world.
Personal Rating:
Legacy Rating:
Final Rating:
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