Every Good Boy Deserves Favour - THE MOODY BLUES*****

Procession/The Story In Your Eyes/Our Guessing Game/Emily's Song/After You Came/One More Time To Live/ Nice To Be Here/You Can Never Go Home/My Song

Every Good Boy Deserves Favour continues the run of superior albums from The Moody Blues. By this time their songs were becoming structurally simpler to facilitate live performances. (US:14 UK:1)

“Although they start off with a very unusual, mostly instrumental/special effects ‘song’ which appears to trace the history of humankind, from there on it is pure Moody Blues. The songs are lavish, thought-provoking, and utterly entertaining. The album has a certain ‘Middle Earth’ quality to it, which seems to transport the listener to another time and place.”

“Each of The Moodies' magnificent seven has a slightly different style, and preference depends largely on personal taste. This is definitely progressive rock, with an emphasis on ambitious, sweeping melodies and a couple of quite experimental symphonic passages. Side two particularly is a classic side.”

“This one is all about Justin Hayward, everything that is good about this album emanates from his pen, The Story In Your Eyes is the single best rock song of their entire career and for once Hayward's fine, understated guitar playing gets a chance to shine.”

“The most mature Moody Blues album. One More Time To Live is probably my favourite track of all time, its middle eight with those lower harmonies layering against the lush background of organ and moog hardly ever fails to astound me. A splendid combination of the pastoral and the grandiose. The Story In Your Eyes is a well done rocker by Hayward, and his other contribution You Can Never Go Home is a perfect balance of picturesque, spiritual and romantic elements.”

“Every Good Boy Deserves Favour reverses the trend of slightly simpler arrangements begun with Question Of Balance, reintroducing interesting symphonic elements while featuring a far stronger set of melodies than that earlier album. As with several other Moodies albums, Every Boy contains a ‘conceptual’ opening track with Procession. At nearly five minutes in length I almost always choose to skip it. Luckily, every other track is great.”

“The album starts off with a brilliant concept song, Procession, an instrumental track that is one of the best from the band and a perfect beginning to the album.”