In Search Of The Lost Chord

If The Moody Blues’ last album was a little hoity-toity, never mind, because they let it all hang out in stunning psychedelic fashion on In Search Of The Lost Chord. Released in July 1968, the band’s second record fully exploits the then-current counter-culture with lyrical themes exploring inner and outer space, both spiritual and terrestrial. “Ride My See-Saw” is classic Moodies, with great guitar licks from Justin Hayward. Ray Thomas’s “Dr. Livingstone, I Presume” is a bouncy, Beatlesque number, while John Lodge’s “House of Four Doors” reminds us that this is still 60s music. But Thomas’s “Legend of a Mind” is the album’s centerpiece. Mike Pinder’s pitch-shifted Mellotron is completely effective, providing the sonic cue to an acid trip, while Thomas’s flute solo would become legendary when performed live. Pinder’s “The Best Way to Travel” continues the psychedelic goodness, while “Visions of Paradise” invokes a folksy vibe, with a great vocal from Hayward. Graeme Edge offers a couple of spoken word pieces, for good measure. The closing “OM” uses Indian sitar, tambura and tabla to great effect. All-in-all, the Moodies make the most of the studio and their musical abilities in creating perhaps their finest work. Again, Tony Clarke and engineer Derek Varnals provide the album’s production, creating a soundscape that fully exploits the then-current stereo high fidelity-the album still sounds fabulous. Packaged with a dramatic cover painting from Phil Travers, the album rose to No. 5 in the UK, though only reaching the US No. 23. The Moody Blues would repeat this formula to continual success, including the excellent A Question Of Balance album in 1970. They took a rest in 1973, next releasing a plethora of solo albums, some good, some so-so, only to return at the end of the decade for more chart-climbing success, but in a more musically mainstream manner.