The Moody Blues - The Present (1983) (vinyl Lp) - €10,00

posted by ad-vinylrecords

The Present is the eleventh album by the Moody Blues, released in 1983. This was the group's last original studio album to be released on their custom label, Threshold Records.

Close the door, cue up The Present, and entire decades suddenly melt away as the air is filled with timeless, displaced music. It's just the Moody Blues, painting another eccentric series of set pieces evoking a charmed, illusory world where imagination and nostalgia hold sway.

Justin Hayward and John Lodge, the band's ace songwriting team, have managed to come up with another batch of courtly, quietly reflective folk-and-roll numbers. 

Overall, though, the Moodies' muse was less generous than on the group's last LP, Long Distance Voyager, and the careful embroidery of their best songs is interrupted by lapses into pop-philosophical musing ("Going Nowhere") and sappy, self-absorbed poetic soliloquies. Particularly galling is the songwriting of flutist Ray Thomas, whose penchant for saccharine arrangements ("Sorry," "I Am") recalls the more top-heavy orchestrated ballads of the predisco Bee Gees. 

Yet the Moody Blues are at their creative best on "Running Water," "Meet Me Halfway" and "Blue World," with their lilting cadences and gentle flourishes. 

Despite the fact that The Present has more weak spots than usual, one knows better than to write off the Moody Blues, for they'll surely return again in a few years, offering new visions of romantic dream worlds. 

The album is the second of the Patrick Moraz era. It provided three minor hit singles in the U.S. with "Blue World", "Sitting at the Wheel" and "Running Water". 

 

Side one

1.  Blue World - 5:16

2.  Meet Me Halfway - 4:09

3.  Sitting At The Wheel - 5:35

4.  Going Nowhere - 5:27

Side two

1.  Hole In The World - 1:55

2.  Under My Feet - 4:48

3.  It’s Cold Outside Your Heart - 4:23

Companies, etc.

• Phonographic Copyright ℗ – The Decca Record Company Limited
• Copyright © – Talencora Ltd.
• Recorded At – Strawberry Studios South
• Mixed At – RAK Studios
• Produced For – Handle Artists

Credits

• Artwork By [Sleeve Co-ordination] – David Wedgbury
• Artwork By [Sleeve Design & Illustrations] – The Studio
• Bass, Vocals – John Lodge
• Drums – Graeme Edge
• Flute, Harmonica, Vocals – Ray Thomas
• Guitar, Vocals – Justin Hayward
• Keyboards – Patrick Moraz
• Management – Jerry Weintraub
• Producer – Pip Williams
• Recorded By, Mixed By – Greg Jackman

Notes

Release:  1983

Format:  LP, Vinyl

Genre:  Soft Rock

Label:  Threshold Records

Catalog#  810119-1

Vinyl:  Goed (VG)

Cover:  Goed (VG)  Gatefold

Prijs: €10,00