Much like the recent tour announcement, From Out of Nowhere simply appeared. The benefit of being a big band is you do not need to keep a check on public interest. Drop an album with enough of a history behind you and a killing is made. From Out of Nowhere is still the most recent release from Electric Light Orchestra – and likely the last. With Jeff Lynne and what remains of the living band members taking to the road, it is unlikely we will hear them return to the studio. But some said the same of Pulp, of Bob Dylan, of all those greats who see no reason to keep in touch with how an audience will respond to them. They can do what they want, when they want to. Such is the case for From Out of Nowhere, and it is the undoing of what should be a sombre, bold farewell for the newly named Jeff Lynne’s Electric Light Orchestra.
Instead, it feels like a brittle piece of work from a band which never captured the spirit of their glory days once they were out of them. A triple bill of albums like the mid-70s period E.L.O. enjoyed is a rarity. Try as they might they could not conquer as well as they did with this run and spend the rest of their careers, even now, trying to top it. In-fighting and a long-running, name-changing disaster have plagued the aftermath of what should be a defining moment in Lynne and company’s career. Instead, it leads to this. Tepid waters are paddled through by wise instrumentalists who should know better. Underwhelming and plain sailing the whole way through, it is clear Lynne has whiffed the bubble of interest in the band following their Olympics and Glastonbury performances. Lynne may have been absent, but the theme and style of the song was not. It is all the same in his absence.
But like Monty Python, Jeremy Clarkson and BBQ flavour Walkers Crisps, what we remember enjoying is not as good on return. There is an essential core missing from it all on second viewing, another listen to From Out of Nowhere is a taxing experience. Nothing out of the ordinary, which is a disgrace for E.L.O., a band who defined themselves time and again as being easily capable of moulding an exciting new path. Nothing of the sort happens on the clunking familiarities and stagnation of anything here, from the title track to the slowed tones and hand-wringing embarrassments of Help Yourself. Promises of brighter days and seeing one another in the warmth of the sun on All My Love is the sort of writing expected of artists without life experience.
That is the key problem for From Out of Nowhere, and to a wider extent why the band never cracked their best period of quality again. Changing experiences. It is easy to feel for the world around you when on the up and up, but once out of the slog, a lax route comes through. Reunions are tricky and keeping consistent with your writing is an impossibility. It is the peaks and troughs we must look to, but for Lynne, there are few peaks within this album. All of this comes from perspective, from the experience of his time between album releases. From 2015 to 2019 little of interest happened. Or at least if it did, it cannot be heard in this music. A dud note for E.L.O. to go out on, but it is damage control, away from a much worse eventuality. There is little worse for legends than a tour date in St. Albans.
Please listen to the last two albums again, focus on Jeff’s guitar playing, have a guitarist friend listen along with you and get his opinion. I think minus the cellos and violins and the keyboards, there is more room for his axe to sing! His best solos are on this album, especially on “Side 2” of the album! Even Zoom hinted at this, except overdone at times there. Yeah, the tunes/lyrics are poppy, but so we’re those of his heroes, the Beatles, we are dealing with the “Sons of the Beatles” here, so there is context here, unlike his Wilburys and his producer/guest guitar/guest background vocals work with Harrison, Petty, Orbison, etc.
I saw them last night in Toronto and they were great.