The Moody Blues: John Lodge, Justin Hayward, Ray Thomas, Graeme Edge.

Additional personnel: Danilo Madonia (keyboards, programming).

Recorded at Studio Mulinetti, Recco, Italy.

The Moodies' most guitar-laden album in ages, STRANGE TIMES is also (perhaps not coincidentally) one of the band's best in ages, a mostly stripped-down (for them) set of unpretentious pop/rock love songs that go down quite painlessly. There are a few misteps; "All That is Real is You" and "Forever Now" come decorated with string arrangements so overripe they recall Max Steiner scores for old Bette Davis movies, and Ray Thomas's folkie children's song, "My Little Lovely," is somewhere between icky and creepy. Just about everything else works, though, even Graeme Edge's de rigueur bad poetry reading in the final "Nothing Changes." Verdict: Not dead yet by a long shot.