ELO 2 [AKA: ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA II‎]

The second ELO album is a bit of an improvement over the first; the departure of Roy Wood also sees the band moving away from slavish devotion to the Beatles, and working on integrating the different parts of its sound more thoroughly. This is achieved best on the first and last songs, which between them attain a dark and foreboding sound miles away from the sunnier material ELO would eventually become known for. The worst song on here is probably the rendition of Roll Over Beethoven, mainly because the "rock and roll bit, proggy bit, rock and roll bit, proggy bit" song structure gets on my nerve - either play straight ahead rock and roll, or play your prog opus, but don't chop the two songs up and mix them together like that! Still, an album which shows the band on the way to better things.