Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 04/10/2007
This upgraded and expanded CD of
Every Good Boy Deserves Favour is a hybrid SACD/CD disc, with two audio layers -- a multi-channel surround-sound SACD layer, playable only on Super-Audio CD players, and a stereo remastered CD layer, playable on any compact disc (or DVD) player. The CD layer is impressive on its own terms, bringing out a close, crisp sound previously unheard on this album, even on its best prior editions -- to achieve that, the producers have boosted the volume a bit, so that the record now sounds more-or-less the way it must have on recording and playback in the studio, to the bandmembers themselves. But the real treat, for those so equipped, is the SACD layer, which offers the album in 5.1 surround-sound, in a mix based on producer
Tony Clarke's quadrophonic mix from the start of the '70s. Serious listeners and audiophiles will love the isolation of the instruments that can be achieved here, and the details that are revealed in the playing and mixing that went into this record, arguably the most well-realized of the group's entire history. Either layer offers a fascinating new take on the recording, the inherent lyricism now matched by a big studio sound and giving the record a harder edge than a lot of longtime listeners will ever have associated with it. The relatively short running time of this expanded edition, which contains but two bonus tracks -- the original live-in-the-studio rendition of
"The Story in Your Eyes" and the previously unheard
Ray Thomas/
Justin Hayward composition
"The Dreamer," from the same November 1970 sessions -- also reveals a lot about the strain that lurked just below the surface of the making of this record; a U.S. tour was sandwiched right in the middle and immediately after the sessions for this record, and the members had come into this album with just enough material (with a lot of work on pieces such as
"Procession" and
"My Song") to fill it up -- in other words, they were losing ground in their creative efforts to stay ahead of demand (a live album would have been a solution to giving them some breathing room, and one heartily wishes that someone within the group or their management, or the
Decca label, had thought to tape some of the shows from this period, which were very enthusiastically reviewed, even in the pages of
Rolling Stone -- and yes kids, there was a time when the
Moody Blues were
that cool!). As it happens, the two outtakes are highly worthwhile, with
"The Story in Your Eyes" rocking even harder in the alternate take, and
"The Dreamer" offering a song that probably could have passed muster on the group's previous album,
A Question of Balance, with more of a rock base than was usual for the band, especially in the middle section; it's also a rare look at a work-in-progress that didn't progress. And coupled with the improved sound, this is an essential acquisition, even for casual fans -- among many other virtues, one can now fully appreciate the range of keyboards beyond the Mellotron that
Michael Pinder was using, and the craftsmanship that went into melding the lyrical and harder rocking sounds on this record. The annotation by
Mark Powell is also thorough and highly informative, as well as entertaining.
~Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
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