Are you on the threshold of leaving this page? Fine. Be that way. On the Threshold of a Belly Button Overall Album Score: 8.7 out of 10 DANGED HIPPI-Hruh? Hey! Where'd all the hippies go? ... Oh, I see you. But you lost your tie-die shirts, and you stop doing all of that Leftover Sandwich Dingies! What happened? ... Hey you! Why'd you comb your hair! ... Did you use shampoo? Hey! You're still hippies, but you're a whole lot neater than you used to be! In that stupid narrative I wrote above, I was attempting to express the sudden loss of cheesy hippie-music that was ever-so-present on In Search of the Lost Chord. Even though On the Threshold of a Dream might still be construed as hippie music, it's much neater ... and, thankfully, it sounds much less dated. All in all, this is a much more mature-sounding album than their previous. While going through this album, my biggest complaint about it is that most of the melodies seem too simple! However, before I get gobs of hate-mail or something, I am going to mention up front that even though the Moody Blues display quite a bit of melodic feebleness on On the Threshold of a Dream, at least they could write melodies! Most musicians, no matter how much they try, cannot! And, of course, Bob Dylan, one of the music industry's most shining contributors, usually has this same problem! However, Bob always manages to get away with his simplistic melodies through merits of its atmosphere. The Moody Blues, while they're certainly in a different musical subcategory than Bob Dylan, succeed in a similar light. If it wasn't for their lush and the sometimes-engaging atmospheres, these songs would be worth diddly! Except, I'd imagine that "Are You Sitting Comfortably?" would have fared well without atmosphere ... but most of the other tracks rely on them pretty much to the letter. However, the simplistic melodies are usually necessary to carry over a song. The two-parter "Have You Heard," doesn't sport even a great, simple melody ... but merely a passable one. And the instrumentation and atmospherics there are about as good as they come on this album. It is also worth mentioning that Justin Hayward doesn't sing a whole lot on this album, and we're never sure why! He has the best voice ... not that all the other guys don't have good voices, either. But Justin's the best. Oh well! Overall Album Score: 8.7 out of 10 (The Moody Blues abandon all of that super-hippie meandering from that In Search of the Lost Chord and show a little bit of artistic strength.) Average Song Score: 8.6 (This is a nice collection of songs ... but perhaps the Moodies could have done a more efficient job at sprucing up some of these melodies. Their studio work and the instrumentation are mostly wonderful, however.) Album Tilt: 8.5 (This album is quite entertaining! However, it's nothing great.) Artist Rating: 9.0 (...Oh what the heck! This is art-rock, isn't it? And if you're going to appreciate the album at all, it's going to be because you have some almost-perverted draw to its artsiness.) Track Reviews In the Beginning 4.5/5 Hah! This is so much better than that pretentious poetic crap that we heard on the Moodies' previous album! Hah! HAH! This one has some computer suddenly making the "I think therefore I am" realization, and then this mad scientist guy chimes in and says all sorts of weird mad scientist stuff. This is great! It's funny! Lovely to See You 9/10 It's lovely to see you, too! Ya know, I'm SO glad that the Moody Blues stopped doing all that hippie crap. In fact, they're doing great stuff like they did on their first album, except there's no London Symphony Orchestra to screw with your head! Yay! Although, I guess this stuff is *kinda* hippie. It's not *let's do LSD* hippie, though. (Heck! I don't care!) This song is very short, but it's very tuneful, pleasant, and quite wonderful. Dear Diary 8.5/10 Why does this one almost sound like one of those beatnik coffeehouse poem-song things? Well I'll tell you one thing: I'll wear tight pants and a beret, but there's no way you're going to get me to drink paint-thinner (cheap coffee) and smoke chicken bones (cheap cigarettes). Um... I think I'm going to shut up. I'd better. Yeah. Oh! I bet you're wondering about the song! Yeah ... it's pretty good! It's entertaining, listenable, and fun ... I think. (Why ain't there anybody snapping? That's all that it's missing.) Although, if you ever start to pay attention to the lyrics, well ... HIPPIES! Send Me No Wine 8.5/10 You know, this isn't the most terribly exciting stuff on the planet. This song is rather simple, but it's cleverly disguised through deep atmospherics and wonderful instrumentation as sounding like something that we might actually enjoy. And heck! It actually works! I enjoy it! To Share Our Love 7.5/10 It gets only a tiny bit sloppier here, but all in all, it's fine! The melody nor the instrumentation performances is enough to have me fully enjoy this one. Oh well! So Deep Within You 8.5/10 Boy ... Even though this is a really good song, I cannot seem to want to give it a 9. The melody is decent, the instrumentation is fine ... it's just missing a bit of kick! And there's nothing that says art rock can't kick! NOTHING! Never Comes the Day 9.5/10 Oh baby! Now this song really does it! For one, the melody doesn't seem over-simplistic at all ... and the instrumentation is both atmospheric and bold. Also, this song dramatically ranges from loud to quiet, slow to fast ... something I kind of wish that rock music would do more often. I can't say that I am a fan of that too-robotic harmonica that I hear in the background during the fast bits, though. This track is not perfect, but it is a minor gem. Lazy Day 9/10 Hey! This one's pretty good too. Even though its basis is a chant that has flower-power written all over it, I find this one to be a beautiful and sometimes even utterly enchanting. However, since I complained about it earlier in these track reviews, I had might as well complain about it here: the melody is a bit too simplistic. However, they do an efficient job disguising it. Are You Sitting Comfortably 10/10 Holy moly! Why are the Moodies putting all of these prime tracks toward the end of their album? Unlike most of their previous efforts on this album, the melody here isn't overly simplistic. In fact, this acoustic-ish Medieval ballad not only has a good tune to it, it is just gorgeous! Gorgeous! The best track of the album (...I think I'm the only critic who thinks this, though...) The Dream 4/5 This is a spoken prologue to the next three songs ... eh ... whatever. Have You Heard (Part 1) 8/10 Everything about the instrumentation on this song is really spot-on ... but this time, I don't think the melody lives up to its promise. It's not terrible or anything. It's entertaining, overall, I think. The Voyage 8.5/10 This surrealist instrumental is really quite entertaining to listen to! It's pretentious, duh, but I can dig it. Have You Heard (Part 2) 8/10 This one goes pretty much ditto for Part 1. Um ... yup. The melody (while its still shows skill compared to other artists and whatnot) sounds too simple! Tell us about the threshold of your dream, and whatever you think of this album here!

All reviews are copyrighted by the author, Michael Lawrence. He made it to the toilet but forgot to flip the lid.