ON THE THIRD DAY

Electric Light Orchestra

Crossover Prog

3.80 | 310 ratings

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OGTL

This was my first exposure to ELO, and I had been interested in exploring the first three or so progressive related albums. I was quite impressed.

The music right away appealed to me and was very accessible, great rock songs with the strings so perfectly incorperated I knew I had discovered a new flavour of the month band.

The album starts on a good foot with "Ocean breakup/King of the Universe" which has some great opening orchestration, and it leads into a softer song, where some brilliant glazed over soaring vocals from Jeff Lynne can be enjoyed. It is an excellent song. "Bluebird is Dead" is reminiscient of the Beatles sound, but still very unique and intruiging. Pretty vocal melodies. "Oh No Not Susan" is another softer Beatles type song, beautifully melodic vocals. The strings in this song also remind me of Harrison's sitar. Beautiful. "New World Rising/Ocean Break up (Reprise)" Is one of the best of the album, spine tingling vocals and orgasmic instrumental climaxes make it so. Great use of the synth here too. "Showdown" is a pretty weird one with wild west strings, funky rythm, assertive vocals and a nice chorus. not the best, but good nonetheless. "Daybreaker" is another knock-out prog track, a intrumental tour-de-force. "Ma-Ma-Ma Belle" is pretty awful, a I have no idea.. some kind of raw blues peice.. too commercial and one dimensional. "Dreaming of 4000" is a very good one, well rounded song that summarizes this album well. "In the Hall of the Mountain King" is an adaptation of some traditional classical peices, very demanding and engaging!!

The sound of this band is not really like any other I have heard so far, the strings are so well placed and arranged that it works great, and Jeff Lynne delivers very stunning but more tamed and less harsh vocals than the previous album. I would reccomend this album as a good starting point, it's accesible enough to farmiliarize yourself without going into the garbage produced later on, and still retaining the progressive element.

OGTL | 4/5 | 2006-12-25

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