Like many people, my first taste of the Moody Blues was through
\nthe radio. Songs like “Nights In White Satin” (in all its
\noverplayed glory), “Tuesday Afternoon,” “The Voice” and “Your
\nWildest Dreams” were all part of the pattern of my young life.
\nJustin Hayward and crew might not have had a lot of time on my
\nturntable when I was young, but I listened intensely every time I
\nheard them on the radio.<\/p>\n
So why am I utterly disappointed by
\nStrange Times<\/i>, their first album in years? Is it because a
\nlot of the rich, layered harmony vocals that I loved on some songs
\njust aren’t there this time around? Or is it that the music sounds
\nlike the band was bored to tears at certain points on this
\nalbum?<\/p>\n
Now, I realize that music changes as time passes, and change is
\noften good (even if it doesn’t seem like it at the moment you first
\nexperience it). But I can’t fathom why the band would utilize what
\nsounds like synthesized drums on the opening track “English
\nSunset”. It’s bad enough that such a gentle tune is turned into a
\nshuffle, but the drumwork sounds like something off a techno
\nalbum.<\/p>\n
And, I realize that I probably expected to hear a lot of the
\nheavily arranged songs like “Your Wildest Dreams” and others which
\nwere both poppy and pretty. Unfortunately for me on both counts,
\nThe Moody Blues do two things on
\nStrange Times<\/i>. First, they scale back their sound so much
\nthat I often thought I was listening to a group like The Fixx. (No
\noffense to Fixx fans; I’m just saying this style of performance
\nisn’t suited for a band like The Moody Blues.) Second, with rare –
\nand I mean
\nrare<\/i> – exception, there are no vocal harmonies. Tracks like
\n“Sooner Or Later (Walkin’ On Air)” and “Forever Now” really would
\nhave benefitted from this.<\/p>\n
It’s not that the harmonies are a gimmick that Hayward and
\ncompany use; it’s that these work well for the band. Case in point:
\n“Foolish Love,” easily the best song on the album. Now
\n
\nthis<\/i>
\n<\/b> sounds like The Moody Blues! The musical arrangement is top
\nnotch, the vocals sound angelic, and it’s a track that even casual
\nfans would be able to easily identify.<\/p>\n
The one thing that strikes me about
\nStrange Times<\/i> is that, unlike some Moody Blues albums I’ve
\nlistened to, I don’t find myself getting excited about the music
\nI’m hearing. This might be because the band occasionally doesn’t
\nsound thrilled with what they’re doing. “All That Is Real Is You,”
\na track that has a bit of a Celtic taste to it, could have been a
\nreal pretty track if it hadn’t been executed so lazily; it
\nsometimes sounds like Hayward is about to fall asleep while doing
\nthe vocal. And did we really need the tieback to
\nDays Of Future Passed<\/i> with the spoken-word outro on “Nothing
\nChanges”?<\/p>\n
I’ll admit, the more I listen to
\nStrange Times<\/i>, the more is revealed that I like about this
\nalbum. But this one is hardly a classic, and is a disappointing
\nreturn for a band that is capable of so much greater work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6703],"rating":[5619],"class_list":["post-39395","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-moody-blues","rating-rating-c"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39395"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39395"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}