Long Distance Voyager by The Moody Blues

Long Distance Voyager, the Moody Blues' tenth album, landed in May 1981 on the band's own Threshold label, and it finds the old cosmic travellers swapping the orchestral haze of their '60s records for a brighter, synth-heavy gloss. It was the first Moody Blues album with Patrick Moraz, the ex-Yes keyboard man, sitting in the seat co-founder Mike Pinder left empty after Octave, and he stacks the keyboards high over Justin Hayward's guitar, John Lodge's bass, Ray Thomas's flute and Graeme Edge's drums.

"Gemini Dream" and "The Voice" have a new-wave bounce, all crisp rhythm and soaring harmony, and they turned into the hits. The gamble paid off: the record became their second number-one album in America, climbed to number 7 back home in Britain, and even deep cuts like "Meanwhile" and "22,000 Days" found their way onto rock radio.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.