Review Summary: A bizarre mix of classic british prog and psychedelica. Excellent.
'ELO 2' is the album at which The Electric Light Orchestra hit their progressive and artistic (or at least in my opinion) peak. Some may say that 'Out of the Blue' or 'A New World Record' hold the latter opinion's title, but if you excuse the occasionally shoddy production, what we have on our hands is a near-masterpiece.
The production is the biggest flaw on the album but the 2003 CD Remaster gave 'ELO 2' a more colourful approach. If, however, you own a vinyl copy of ELO's second effort, watch out for the 2 'Boogie' tracks, as they have the biggest habit of sounding a tad bland. Nonetheless, 'From the Sun to the World (Boogie #1) and 'In Old England Town (Boogie #2)' are fantastic, and vastly underrated tracks. '#1''s beautiful keyboard, piano, and string arrangements make it a bizarre, dynamic and bombastic musical landscape whereas '#2' is as menacing and pompous as ELO ever got, as showcased by over-dubs and over-dubs of sawing cello-riffs.
The second track, 'Momma', is a nicely melancholy ballad. It has a slow pace and a some dreamy licks from both Jeff Lynne and Richard Tandy. I wouldn't describe it as weak but then again it definitely isn't a stand-out. It is pleasant, in short. After the diabolical riffing from the cellists in '#2', which is the opening track, the diverse musicianship is certainly apparent when Mike Edwards and Colin Walker can convince us that they can play as calmly as a unit with the rest of the band, something that I think Roy Wood never had in mind.
The two stand outs of the album are definitely 'Kuiama' and 'Roll Over Beethoven'. I don't want to go into a staggering amount of detail about 'Kuiama', as it is my belief that it's one of the best songs ever put onto vinyl, but I can summarise why you should definitely give it, if not the rest of the album, a listen: it builds up very elegantly and then climaxes with a mind-numbingly brilliant violin solo. After this, it concludes without any kind of obvious conclusion and an ominous moog whirring. Ambiguous, dark, tragic, epic. That is all.
'Roll Over Beethoven' is sheer brilliant stupidity. This song takes a classic Chuck Berry number and progresses it; The Nice, 'America', Yes, 'Every Little Thing', ELP, 'Fanfare for the Common Man', all prog covers which take standard classical or pop pieces, extend their lengths, and maybe throw in some bombast. There's nothing sinful or blasphemous about this track, and it's more fun than the other tracks I mentioned, too (ELP, Yes and The Nice tended to take themselves a little more seriously than ELO ever did, and when ELO wanted to be humours, unlike ELP, they didn't sacrifice some of their dignity. I suppose you can do this when you're commercially unsuccessful). 'Roll Over Beethoven' is a little bit of funny genius.
To conclude, I wouldn't say that any of the songs on 'ELO 2' are bad. They're all proggy gems with suitable lengths to fit themselves, as they are bursting at the seams with wonderful, bizarre creativity. Like I said, the album lacks great production and also coherence, but if you are not too put off by a sporadically disjointed album or one with maybe messy infinite overdubs - which I am most definitely not - then give 'ELO 2' your time. You'd be happy you did.
