ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA: Time (ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

After his disco period with "Discovery" and "Xanadu", Electric Light Orchestra goes back to the style that ensured its success. "Time" is the worthy heir of "A New World Record" and "Out Of The Blue" even if the strings are less and less present and more and more masked by the synthesizers. ELO even pays itself the audacity to make a concept album, the story of a guy from the 80's projected in 2095, at a time when this process can easily be considered as a has-been.

As if to anchor this concept, "Time" starts with a 'Prologue' and ends with an 'Epilogue' as in any good story. The titles are not really chained to each other but are regularly subjected to transitions, often provided by the strings, of which this is the main contribution. These are very short instrumental passages whose tunes have no relation with the musical themes of the titles that precede or follow them.

Jeff Lynne seems to have ragain his inspiration a little at half-mast on the previous albums. No big surprise however, the man remains faithful to his sometimes popish sweet melodies, populated with luxuriant vocal harmonies and rich orchestrations. Futuristic concept obliges, a good number of tracks play the card of modernity (of the time) with great reinforcement of synthesizers, vocodorized or distorted voices ('Prologue', 'Yours Truly 2095', 'Here Is The News') and some are very new wave ((the instrumental 'Another Heart Breaks', 'From The End Of The World' whose repetitive rhythmics, skeletal melodies with synths and cold vocals remind us of Visage).

Alongside, other tracks echo a not so distant past: 'Twilight' and 'The Rain Is Falling', one dynamic, the other romantic, of the 'ELO' style with refined melodies, 'The Way Life's Meant To Be' that one would see well interpreted by Eagles, 'The Light Goes Down' lasciviously reggae, the bland '21st Century Man' (a far cry from his almost homonymous King Crimson 'schizoid') and the cheerful rockabilly of 'Hold On Tight' on which Jeff Lynne sings a verse in French with a deliciously (or dreadfully) British accent.

The album culminates in the sumptuous 'Ticket To The Moon'. Beginning with a mezzo voce song accompanied by a simple piano, the track slowly rises in a sublime crescendo to poignant peaks with lush string accompaniment and magnificent choruses before the canonical finale gives us the irrepressible urge to cover Ticket To The Moon in a falsetto voice. A very great ELO title.

Certainly, all tracks are not so successful and the general tone of "Time" will not disconcert the amateurs of ELO so much the style "Jeff Lynne" is recognizable. In addition, if the album by mixing many styles appears contrasted, it becomes a little disparate by its collage of very different atmospheres sometimes very far from the futuristic concept of the album. Nevertheless, it's been a long time since Jeff Lynne had shown such a regularity in the inspiration and even the weakest tracks of "Time" remain of a much higher level than those of the albums which will follow. - Official website

ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA

TIME

CBS

ROCK