Message (Mike Pinder) (LP 3482)

Mike Pinder  The Promise (Vinyl, Threshold Records, 1976) ***  

Genre: Prog rock

Places I remember: Slowboat Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Carry On

Gear costume: Free As A Dove 

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5

Active compensatory factors: Mike Pinder was, of course, a key member of the classic Moody Blues line-up. This solo album was completed during an inactive period for the band. Mike left the Moodies in 1978 and passed away in 2024.

His voice is instantly recognisable, but in The Moody Blues he had three other strong vocalists/composers to share the vocal duties, and so he struggles to carry a whole album on his own. 

The other problem is the hippy dippy sentimentality on display in The Promise. A little goes a long way. That said, it's a pleasant enough sounding album.

Where do they all belong? His only solo album while with the Moodies, I won't be tracking down his others from the nineties that he recorded after leaving the band.

New horizons (The Moody Blues) (LP 289)

The Moody Blues Seventh Sojourn (Vinyl - Threshold, 1972) *****

Genre: Prog rock  

Places I remember: Sydney and the record shop in Davy Jones Ltd department store 1973  

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Loads of fab on this one - but I can't go past John Lodge's amazing I'm Just A Singer In A Rock and Roll Band.




Gear costume: For My Lady gets me every time!  

Active compensatory factors: My favourite album by The Moody Blues has it all - the band hit a creative peak with this one that couldn't subsequently be replicated.

In 1973, the family holiday was to Sydney and resulted in me buying Deep Purple's Made in Japan, Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy, a few others, and this magnificent, classic record.

Every track instantly takes me back to that time, and I often need to play this and be transported to those new horizons.

Have I really changed? Nope. Just on the outside! On the inside I'm still that teenage kid playing this album in my bedroom on the Garrard SP25 Mk 3. 

Where do they all belong? Octave was next, but sadly, by the time it came out, like many - I'd lost some interest in keeping current with the band. I still don't own a copy - must rectify that anomaly! 

P.S. Just bought a vinyl copy of Octave and The Present. The move away from Pinder's mellotron into moog stylings wasn't a good one but The Present holds up pretty well)