ELO: FULL VOLTAGE IS RESTORED

Apart from their first album, the ELO have produced albums so increasingly forgettable that I'm hard pressed to even remember the last one's existence. It is a great pleasure, then, to announce that 'Face The Music' is a major step towards fulfilling the promise of their first album. True, there is the rather awful 'Fire On High' which borrows heavily from Schonberg and other 20th Century composers (as well as the odd nod to Handel) but this is more than offset by tunes like 'Evil Woman', 'Strange Magic', and 'One Summer Dream'.

Production has a lot to do with this album's success as well as the band finally achieving synthesis between their classical and rock pretensions. For once it doesn't sound as though the mikes were set up in the studio next to the band: separation is distinct, the strings leap out with full bodied energy, and Jeff Lynne doesn't sound as though he's singing through an overfull tea strainer.

The secret within their synthesis is classical boogie riffs that flow like good wine, and could continue to do so all night - a police state would play them over the Muzac system to keep the masses in happily lulled hypnosis. Similarly, there are several lines that are non-specifically reminiscent of previous rock and pop tunes and more than one steal from the Beatles - allowable, since the ELO's professed direction is to pick up where 'I Am The Walrus' ended.

All writing is by Jeff Lynne covering the gamut of styles. He apes Roy Wood with the hokey 'Down Home Town', swinging through some Nashville picking before dropping in a verse of 'Dixie'; 'Strange Magic' and 'One Summer Dream' are flowing and hypnotic, perfect police state stuff, while 'Poker' rocks along with murderous intent, despite corn ball lyrics.

'Evil Woman' though, is the classic. It fuels perfectly the soul direction so crassly assimilated on 'Showdown', an explosion of flickering rhythm guitars, clarinet and surging strings, a rich vein of hooks and melodies that seem instantly familiar. If it isn't a huge hit we are in a worse shape than we think.

Now that ELO seem to be capable of delivering the goods on a very high plain indeed, it would be nice to see them return to Britain and repeat their American Top Twenty success. Or has this all been done with mirrors?

John Ingham