JEFF LYNNE’S ELO

From Out Of Nowhere COLUMBIA

The follow-up to Alone In The Universe. Guess what it sounds like?

There’s something incredibly comforting about the Electric Light Orchestra. For the middle-aged among us, they’re one of those bands who have always been there, despite all the personnel/name rights shenanigans and the commercial tides and critical brickbats. Their all-time great catalogue of orchestral pop is always somewhere in the background, soundtracking happy times. Watching Jeff Lynne lead his superb live band out at Hyde Park back in 2014 was a thrill, with the gig seemingly putting them back in the wider audience’s mind. Released a year later, Alone In The Universe was the band’s first selection of original material for 14 years and the first credited to Jeff Lynne’s ELO. It went platinum in the UK, the band played Wembley in 2017, and ELO were back.

From Out Of Nowhere sees Lynne airing his pleasing set of unmistakeable trademarks – that spacious snare drum, the compressed jangly guitars, Beatles-y chords/harmonies and, of course, that time-proof voice. ELO’s 14th album finds them on familiar ground. We say ‘them’, but once again Lynne plays almost everything himself here. The only other credited performers are Steve Jay (Lynne’s engineer at his LA home studio, Bungalow Palace) on tambourines and shakers and long-time compadre Richard Tandy, who plays a rip-roaring piano solo on the good-time rocker One More Time.

The similarly upbeat and retro Sci-Fi Woman has an irresistible chorus and, maybe the best song on here, Time Of Our Lives expressed Lynne’s joy at that huge Wembley concert. ‘Sixty thousand mobile phones were shining in the dark that night,’ he sings, interpolating Telephone Line when reporting on that hit’s rapturous reception. It’s actually nice to hear him revel in this latest flush of success.

Elsewhere, a mid-tempo feel prevails on the none-moreELO title track, Help Yourself and Down Came The Rain.

The catchy, radio-friendly All My Love dispenses with the signature drum sound in favour of a modern dance beat that works well, and doo-wop pastiche Goin’ Out On Me could be Tears On My Pillow as seen through Lynne’s 70s rock lens. I’m Losing You and album closer Songbird are the ballads that he almost seems able to cut by the yard.

Look, we all know the deal. We’re far from the proggy climes of 1974’s Eldorado and there’s probably nothing here to rank alongside the golden-era catalogue, but From Out Of Nowhere sounds like ELO, more so than Alone In The Universe. You still only need to hear the first bar, even the first drum beat, to know who this is, and for many of us that is soothingly back to somewhere.

SPACIOUS SNARE, JANGLY GUITARS… AND THAT TIME-PROOF VOICE.