Review Summary: Such a lovely dream...
As human beings, we all require sleep in order to function. One of the most fascinating and intriguing things that we still don't quite fully understand happens when in a deep sleep, these are called dreams. We've all had those adventurous and incredibly pleasant dreams and we've all had nightmares. I'd like to think of "Days of Future Passed" as one of those adventurous and incredibly pleasant dreams.
It has everything that a dream I would want to have. Delightful and lush orchestration, beautiful melodies and vocals and straight up feel good moments of euphoria. One of the main focus's of the album is the London Festival Orchestra who weave seamlessly in and out of the progression of the album, letting the rest of the band start where they left off and pick up the pace. These dreamlike moments that are placed all over the album are in fact brought to life by the orchestra. Though the album may rely so heavily on the orchestra, it doesnt take away from the other elements of rock the band uses. You could say that this was one of the first albums that successfully used "symphonic prog rock" right.
Being a prog album, there of course must some sort of concept, and no doubt does this album have one. The concept focuses on the story of a simple man's day. Within the first five minutes, you are welcomed to this simple man's life by a simple narration(which appear throughout the album) before the album finally takes hold of you. Justin Hayward, John Lodge, Ray Thomas and Mike Pinder are all equally important as far as vocal duties go, as they all play their part on the album.
As the record gets nearer to its end, you are treated to the gorgeous "Nights in White Satin", which serves as the albums final track and a fitting one at that. It sums up "Days of Future Passed" perfectly and ends you on you're journey that you've taken. Being released some 50 years ago does not take away from the fact that this is a brilliant and moving and magical piece of art that is a bit hard to really explain fully what level it is on musically, you just need to listen to it to fully understand. If only all my dreams could sound this good... Well at least with this record, I can only hope.
