Message from the Country is the fourth and last album by The Move, as well as its only album for EMI's Harvest. This album has long had the reputation as The Move's best album, although it was recorded while the band was changing itself into the Electric Light Orchestra. Recorded in 1970–71 at the same time that The Move was also laying down tracks for the first Electric Light Orchestra album (and even during some of the same sessions), there are inevitably some similarities in style between the two albums, especially the heavy use of "tracking up" (overdubbing) to capture all of the instruments being played by Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne. Nevertheless, Wood and Lynne were determined to maintain some differentiation between the sound of their two groups (for example, by confining Wood's saxes to Message and Wood's cellos to the ELO debut). The lengthy sessions for this album mostly just involved Wood and Lynne, because of all the tracking up being done. As a result, during these sessions, bassist Rick Price quit The Move, reducing it to a trio. Instead of replacing him, Roy Wood added bass duties to his other roles, as well as erasing Price's tracks on the existing songs and then re-recording the bass lines. Although drummer Bev Bevan did not quit, he states that this is his least-favorite Move album in the liner notes for the 2005 reissue.