The Present (1983)

WARNING!!

These reviews are given in the spirit of a personal editorial and of personal opinion. If you would find yourself offended by these views and criticisms within the body of these reviews, please do not read further. It is not our intention to offend or injure someone's views on their favourite band. We wrote these as one-time fans who now, after many years, revisited these albums and wanted to write fair and unbiased reviews of The Moody Blues' material. If indeed, a member of The Moody Blues does happen to read these reviews, please take into consideration that these are simply opinions. These reviews present an alternate perspective.
Thank You,
Shawn and Andrew Dow,
March, 2007

Album Review by Andrew Dow

Album Review by Shawn Dow

Album Review by Andrew Dow

With "Long Distance Voyager" the Moody Blues had established themselves as a major rock group once again. With the introduction of Patrick Moraz and Pip Williams as producer, the Moody Blues sounded fresh and new, with still some of their old traits in tow. They didn't release another album until 1983, the two-year interval mostly due to touring to promote "Long Distance Voyager".

The Present was recorded in 1983 and followed a similar theme to "Long Distance Voyager": A mostly Hayward/Lodge song list, but still some material by Edge and Thomas. The album even has a similar layout. Hayward and Lodge tunes with an Edge one in the middle and Thomas to close out the album. Unfortunately, repeating a similar layout or formula does not necessarily guarantee success.

Blue World: A quick drum fill opens the song as Patrick Moraz lays down the groundwork for this moderate rock song penned by Hayward. The song has a bluesy feel to it with some nice changes, although Moraz's keyboards tend to overwhelm the song, with his constant trills and even the use of a keyboard created bass line. Hayward supplies some guitar runs here and there that add a bit to the song. Then the chorus of "It's a Blue World", with Thomas' tambourine shaking and Moraz freaking out on keyboards, running up and down the keyboard so fast I'm getting Vertigo. The song settles into the main verse repeated again and then into its final chorus ending with Hayward supplying a mild guitar solo. The song is all right, just long, running 5 minutes 20 seconds, simply repeats itself too much. The song comes off sounding synthetic and overproduced.

Meet Me Halfway: Hayward and Lodge continue to write together after the having the hit "Gemini Dream", but this tune is nothing like that song. The tempo speeds up a tad, and the tone is brighter with some nice backing keyboards and a twangy guitar supplied by Hayward. Then, that tambourine makes an appearance once again, running exhaustively through the whole song, giving Thomas something to do. The vocals are nice here, except for some ill-placed falsetto by Lodge. The song begins to sound tired about halfway, (sorry for the pun), through the song. Way too many repeats, making the song sound formulaic and poppy. The vocal melodies are nice, but the performance by the band in general sounds too mannerly and safe.

Sitting At The Wheel: The Moody Blues move into stadium rocker with Lodge's crashing and thrashing song, with an electronically generated bass line and bombastic drum sound. The song isn't too bad, just too much bombast. Hey, these guys aren't Van Halen ya know. The song is very formulaic and repetitive, except for the middle 8 section, complete with "Rock on Rocker". Good grief! This tune reminds me so much of "Steppin' In A Slide Zone", but I don't know why. The song has drive, just too repetitive. The song's chorus of John Lodge vocals makes me think this entire song was his alone, except for the nice guitar solo by Hayward, where he really tries to pull the lead out. The solo is not complex to be sure, but it sounds awful nice. The song then fades just as the solo gets interesting. The re-mix single of this tune has a much longer solo, but I've never heard it. A flawed song.

Going Nowhere: Edge's first song starts off as a cosmic downer trip. Sung by Thomas and backed by punches of Moraz going cosmic with sound effects. More wailing from Lodge's girlishly silly falsetto on the chorus. The song picks up its feet on the second verse, but still sounds lumbering and dull. The middle 8 pops out of nowhere and picks up the song's feel, but Thomas goes into overkill mode in his vocals, and the constant chorus of vocals start reminding me of "After You Came". The end section of the song picks up its tone with a small little solo from Moraz and is nicely understated. Then Edge starts doing this constant string of cymbal crashes after 4 repeats and some more Moraz cosmic debris; this make the song just plod along. Almost like they're doing a rehash of "In My World". The song plods along and along without nothing to accent it towards it's end where it just fades out. Not a strong Edge effort this time around.

Hole In The World: The first instrumental since "Beyond" from " To Our Children's, Children's Children", "Hole In The World" is a snare drum based military march with keyboard backing and a nice guitar riff by Hayward. This piece has a nice feel to it and is yards ahead of "Beyond". The rise in tone of the song with its sustained guitar notes by Hayward make you think the song will really go somewhere, until...

Under My Feet: Another slow rocker in the same tempo as "Hole In The World", complete with Lodge falsettos and a chorus of Lodge voices. Some nice little bass runs occur in the song, complete with a snare flourish that comes to a sudden stop. The repeated line "Quite so fast", reminds me of "Monty Python". The song has some nice changes in it, just too much of the main chorus, and electronically produced saxes. The middle 8 "Where were you" section sounds like John Lennon! It then reverts to glammy saxes and organ sounds. The song then reverts back to "Hole In The World" to close out. The song should have been shorter and with less padding.

It's Cold Outside of Your Heart: Hayward takes us into country territory with this number. The opening guitar riff is nicely double-tracked, backed by acoustic guitars, but I'm not sure if Hayward can pull off country. Moraz does the same thing he did on "Blue World", constantly doing lines all over the place in the background. The song has a languorous mood and a dreary tempo, and the keyboards plod out in the background. The song is nicely sung by Hayward, who has found his range and writes specifically for it by now in his career. If your in the mood (pun, sorry) for dreary, mellow country, this is the place.

Running Water: Another slow, Hayward ballad. I can distinctly remember falling asleep by this point listening to this album. This bit is somewhat faster, but is still in the melancholy mood. Hayward's wispy vocal line is back. Moraz's string-like keyboard line is at times nice and so out of place at others. Hayward's "Oh, running water" sounds so feminine and petite, I cringe. The song then repeats itself with a straight-ahead drumbeat and bass line to support it, but I don't think it can truly save this song. The song does have a change in feel, but the "Oh, running water" line is dreadful, despite some nice bass lines here and there by Lodge. Then the song just peters out. These last two tunes remind me a lot of "Octave".

I Am: Oh, no. More excesses, this time from Thomas. This rambling poem against a thin flute and eerie keyboards to give it drama, doesn't really work for me. "Built in the image of the father" whispered through Thomas' flute, and "I Am" simply screamed out by Thomas, put this piece in the dumpster, what with it's chorus of "Ahs" and sputtered flutes through a delay.

Sorry: Is Thomas apologizing for "I Am" or something? Thomas' opening vocals are much calmer than "I Am" backed by the band. The "hanging out my heart to dry" section is much better than the rest of this tune. The song then crashes into a slow power-rocker, backed by a chorus of Lodge-lead vocals, with the occasional falsetto touch. Then the tune moves into a fast rocker with a flute/harmonica solo played through some processing. The vocals in the middle 8 "here I am, loving you" section is weak, only to return back to the beginning again. The songs' muli-part structure is interesting, but can't save this one, although Moraz uses the repeats at the end for a nice solo of his own. Reminiscent of Thomas' "Octave" material.

Summary

This is not a strong album. Maybe "Long Distance Voyager" was too tough an act to follow for these guys. I have some sneaking suspicions that after Pip Williams cracked the whip with them that he may have said, "Ok, you guys can do what yah want on this one, I won't interfere too much."

A lot of the old Moody Blues trappings came back to haunt them on this album: Lodge's falsetto, background vocal placed "up-front" in the mix, and above all else, weak material. This album plays more like a Moody Blues album than "Long Distance Voyager" does. That album sounds like a band with its reigns pulled fast by an outside source, namely Pip Williams. On this album, I think they had more control over their material, and they just didn't have it.

This album had a minor hit with "Blue World" and "Sitting At The Wheel" as well, but I can remember going into used shops all over and spotting "Blue World" white label dj copies everywhere, not to mention the "Blue World/Going Nowhere" 12" single.

This album went delete as well, like "Octave" did, but this is a better album than "Octave". This album barely charted and saw the end of Pip Williams. I'd like to think the said, "I told you guys what would happen, so see ya!"

It would be 3 more years before another Moody Blues album would be released, and this period saw Justin Hayward doing a myriad of solo projects in the interim, while the other Moodies waited for what would happen next.

Star Rating (out of 5)

** out of *****

Album Review by Shawn Dow

Watch for an upcoming Review by Shawn Dow