ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA [AKA: NO ANSWER]

For those only familiar with Electric Light Orchestra's radio hits from the mid 70's to the early 80's may be surprised to find this band in our beloved archives. However, listening to some of their earliest albums it becomes clear that they were an art rock band and thus clearly belong here. This debut album might be their most experimental one ever and also one of their better ones. One flaw is that it is not at all as well produced as later albums by the band. Indeed, Eldorado was the first album they did with high production values but sadly it was also the last one they ever did that can be called progressive.

This album builds on the foundation provided by The Beatles Eleanor Rigby, with the cello having a prominent place in the wall of sound. The Beatles is, and would forever stay, ELO's main musical influence and this is very apparent here too. Maybe the music of ELO is a reasonable approximation of what The Beatles would have sounded like had they continued to record albums in the 70's? The sound is a bit harsher than anything recorded by The Beatles, though.

Surprisingly there are also other influences here raging from classical music to medieval Folk! Some passages even remind me a bit of Gryphon! Other parts are more psychedelic. There is a good balance between shorter Beatles-like pop tunes and longer, more experimental songs.

ELO is not an essential band to have in your Prog collection, but if you want some albums by them this debut album should be one of them. It represents a very interesting start by a band that would go on to do much less interesting things later on in the decade and into the next.

Good, but non-essential

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