The Electric Light Orchestra II (1972)


 

  1. In Old England Town (Boogie #2)
  2. Mama
  3. Roll Over Beethoven
  4. From the Sun to the World (Boogie #1)
  5. Kuiama

 

With Roy Wood exiting stage left after just one album — apparently deciding that one mad scientist in the lab was enough — Jeff Lynne and drummer Bev Bevan were left to salvage the ELO experiment. And to their credit, they didn’t give up. They retooled the lineup, ditched the French horn, and leaned harder into the “orchestra” part of their mission. The addition of two cellists and a violinist alongside keyboardist Richard Tandy and bassist Mike de Albuquerque gave the band its first real glimpse of the sound it would eventually master.

But ELO II is not that sound. Not yet.

Instead, it’s the awkward middle chapter — the moment where ambition far outweighs execution. You can practically hear Lynne wrestling with the idea of “art,” convinced that longer automatically means better. Every track sprawls. The shortest song on the album is over six minutes, and the rest clock in somewhere between “respectable prog” and “are we still doing this?”

The lone exception — or at least the closest thing to an anchor — is Roll Over Beethoven, the Chuck Berry classic given a full symphonic overhaul. It became a staple of the band’s live sets, and onstage, one imagines it had a certain theatrical charm. But here, stretched to eight minutes with string flourishes, instrumental detours, and a somewhat forced sense of gravitas, it mostly just overstays its welcome. What Berry did in under three minutes, ELO does in nearly triple the time — and not necessarily to better effect.

Mama is another near-miss. There’s a decent song buried somewhere in there — one that Lynne himself would eventually unearth with a streamlined edit for the Flashback box set decades later. But here, it meanders, uncertain whether it wants to be a ballad, an epic, or just a placeholder.

The rest of the album — three tracks that somehow stretch over 30 minutes — is a slog. Kuiama, in particular, is a well-intentioned anti-war ballad that morphs into something of a dirge. It’s not terrible in concept, but it simply doesn’t justify its length. In Old England Town and From the Sun to the World aren’t much better — all sprawling instrumental passages and weighty lyrics, delivered without much melodic payoff.

The bigger issue is pacing. Every song is trying to be the centerpiece. There are no palate cleansers, no shifts in tempo or mood to keep the ear engaged. It’s a heavy listen — not emotionally, but structurally. And for a band still finding its footing, it makes ELO II feel more like an academic exercise than a listening experience.

Still, buried beneath the excess are some seeds of the band ELO would soon become. The fusion of classical and rock elements is more cohesive than it was on the debut, and Lynne’s production instincts — while still raw — are beginning to take shape. But this is a learning curve album, and it sounds like one. The ambition is there. The ideas are there. The discipline? Not so much.

Give them credit for reaching. But you don’t need to feel bad if you skip most of the tracks along the way.


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