The Moody Blues - Octave (LP)

Octave is the ninth album by The Moody Blues (the eighth by this particular line-up), released in 1978, and their first release after a substantial hiatus following the success of the best-selling Seventh Sojourn in 1972. Released after a considerable break, which saw The Moody Blues returning in an era of punk music and disco, Octave produced a reduced commercial outcome for the band, but reached No. 6 in the United Kingdom and went platinum in the United States, where the album reached No. 13.

The album produced the hit single Steppin' in a Slide Zone, which hit No. 39 in the US, in addition to Driftwood. The album's title is a musical pun: it references both the notion of an octave; and as a word derived from the Latin octavus it refers to this being the eighth album by this line-up of the Moody Blues (following on from the previous album title Seventh Sojourn).

Octave was considered a departure from previous Moody Blues albums, mainly because of the group's use of lounge-style organs and synthesizers in place of a Mellotron or Chamberlin (Mike Pinder's song One Step Into the Light references the Mellotron). Real strings were used on three songs: Under Moonshine and I'm Your Man (both written by Ray Thomas), as well as Survival (written by John Lodge).

The album was something of a comeback for the group, who had not released an album as a full group in six years. Justin Hayward remembers, "We were apart for three years, and we knew we were going to record another album together, but, in interviews, none of us were going to say it until we actually did it. We never thought we would be able to come back in the same way. We thought we had been away too long, so we were really making a record for ourselves. But then it just took off again - it's like what people couldn't have, they wanted even more".