So here's the follow up from the last article, featuring three returning bands, and this time, all four are from 1971 to help me work out my Top 5. Unfortunately, I don't think any of these will be making it as they are a clunky group of albums. I know I may be tipping my hand early here, but nothing here was particularly mind-blowing, despite their various efforts. Still, they're interesting albums and worth giving a listen, if only to show how each band has changed and will change.
After checking out their debut and enjoying the follow up, it's finally time to check out their critically acclaimed third album. At this point, the band was eager to get some attention outside their fanbase, and keyboardist Richard Sinclair brought some stronger pop music vibes to the songwriting. While it's a decent collection of songs, I feel like something got lost in the shuffle as a consequence.
First off, the production is a major step up, sounding rather quite clean compared to their muddier previous albums. However, the songs themselves are much more straight forward. The album opens with "Golf Girl," which is about how the bassist met his girlfriend and honestly sounds bland, even with a trombone playing the lead melody. "Winter Wine" is an improvement, letting the band jam around quite a bit, but then they get strange with the 7/8 "Love to Love You (and Tonight Pigs Will Fly)." It's like they tried to blend prog with pop, and I don't know if it really works. The title trick is alright, full of folky nostalgia for the band's hometown. The album then closes with a 22 minute epic titled "Nine Feet Underground." While it certainly has some interesting sections, I don't know if the flow is quite perfect as they journey through them. It makes me think of Procol Harum's "In Held Twas In I" at times, but much more instrumental. It's not bad, and probably the closest the band gets to the weirdness of If I Could Do It Again... that I liked.
While it's not a bad collection of songs, the spontaneity of the previous album is missing. Perhaps the band wasn't as interested in psychedelic spaces this time around, shifting into their idea of a pop rock sound with some very safe song structures. I liked "Winter Wine" and "Nine Feet Underground" the most, as they took me on more of a sonic journey than the others. Maybe I need to listen to it more, but this is a let down compared to what I heard.
While the band did well with their first album, they were pretty rushed to put out a second and relied on some older material they had written before but couldn't fit into the first. I enjoyed their debut as a decent set of jammy blues rock, the band takes a much bigger dive into jazz-fusion.
Jazz was certainly a part of their sound before this, but this is stepping away from the likes of Cream in favor of something like King Crimson or Colosseum. This is made very clear with the first two tracks "Vas Dis" and "The Pilgrim" being some very interesting journeys, and featuring some very technical playing. Steve Upton in particular gives his drum kit quite the pounding. It is also worth noting that these two songs don't have any lyrics, but instead feature some interesting vocals anyway. "Vas Dis" goes for this rambling scat melodies, while "The Pilgrim" has some Yes-like ahs that fit the moodier tone. There are two other instrumentals, but they're short and don't add much. "Alone" was part of a longer song, but they decided to just include a section of it that's a meditative jam, and "Lullaby" has some appropriate sentimentality with the guitar harmonies. "Valediction" is also in the soft rock style, though the lyrics are on the forlorn side. Of course, the blues rock hasn't been completely abandoned, as "Jail Bait" is very straight-ahead with its structure (until the sudden reggae section at the end), and the album ends with "Where Were You Tomorrow," a live blues jam that goes over ten minutes.
I don't know if this is better or worse than their first, as it is kind of a different animal. The one before was more of a blues-rock album and had some pretty good stuff, but here, I think the jazzy songs are the better ones, as the blues rock feels a little bland in comparison. In any case, the band remains solid, featuring their slick guitar licks and harmonies and backed by a very driven rhythm section. I understand their next album Argus is the one everyone praises, but I'll have to wait until next year to get to that!
After getting through their first album, which was quite the unusual trip, I was feeling a bit hesitant about their follow up. Fortunately, this one ended up being much more music focused, letting their synthy noise-makers be the spice to their spacey jams.
Things kick off with the 15-minute uptempo epic "You Shouldn't Do That." It takes a minute to get into the music, but once it does, the chugging rhythms do a solid job of setting the tone and letting the band just mess around creatively for most of the runtime. While the lyrics are more angst driven, they have this overlapping style that flows well with the song. However, the album kind of descends from there. While there are more decent space rock jams, they don't feel quite as ambitious, though. "Masters of the Universe" feels the most organized of the songs. "We Took the Wrong Step Years Ago" shakes things up by being more of a folky jam on acoustic guitars, but the rest pretty much stick to more mid-tempo songs that roll along.
This is a definite improvement, as the band is clearly focusing on creating a musical space rather than a noisy, ambient one. I admit it's hard to know how much of this is intentional and how much is just improvised playing that's loosely organized, but I suppose that's space rock for you. At the very least, this is much closer to what I was expecting with the band. I don't know if I've heard anything great yet, but I can see this band growing on me the more I listen to them.
Before becoming pop rock legends, the Electric Light Orchestra started as more of a chamber pop group, inspired by some of the symphonic songs of the Beatles. Largely focused around Jeff Lynne, Roy Wood, and Bev Bevan, their debut is a very confusing album, as they haven't quite worked out how to make their blend of ideas work smoothly yet.
The opening track "10538 Overture" is a decent start, featuring a solid riff and backed by the orchestrations well. You can definitely hear their later sound in this one, as well as on "Nillie Takes Her Bow" and "Mr. Radio." However, the album is uneven with its shifting styles. The Beatles' influence is strongly felt on "Look At Me Now" and "Queen of the Hours," and they have some instrumentals that feel like movie soundtrack pieces, full of drama and noise, but they don't hold my interest very well. The production isn't really helping them. Maybe having different instruments panned far left and right might have sounded impressive at the time, but it just feels jarring now, and there are spots where things get muddy.
The one thing that holds the album together is this strong sense of melodrama. You can tell the artists were dedicated to an idea, but hadn't quite figured out how to make it work. Blending orchestral arrangements with typical pop and rock structures weren't necessarily new, but I don't think anyone quite embraced them as much as ELO was trying to here. I did like "10538 Overture" and "1st Movement (Jumping Biz)," even if that second track was derivative of "Classical Gas" by Mason Williams. Overall, this album is a mixed bag, but I'm determined to dig through their discography as I'm confident there will be some great tracks soon enough.
