The second instalment of a band who never quite bounced back from Balance of Power, Electric Light Orchestra, or what was left of it, find themselves with a second album of problems. It would stop the band dead in its tracks, another of the failed soft launches of E.L.O. without the Jeff Lynne charm. Electric Light Orchestra Part Two. As on the nose as you can get and its continuation of the sound which charmed the world is a failure. Moment of Truth is an admittance of that and would mark the end of this spin-off. But there was still an audience hungry for their glittery rock style and to the trough of slop we go, another piece of what might feel like E.L.O. is out there.
Well, not out there. It has been wiped from Spotify and the only remnants of Moment of Truth remain in the copyright combat arena of YouTube. But then elusive albums are that for a reason. All of it points to an attempt at sucking up nostalgia. Even the opening Overture has its problems, and they all point toward a desire to rekindle the past. Harmless noise and lengthy for what it is. The band splits off with Kelly Groucutt, Eric Troyer and Phil Bates sharing the vocal duties. Even The London Session Orchestra is in place to make you feel like this is a living, breathing E.L.O. album and not the shambolic, stitched-together corpse of uneventful, leftover scrapings. It has the Balance of Power problem to it, being a repetitive and lyrically dour experience. Keep breaking down those walls, it will not bring about lyrical enlightenment.
Meaningless fluff is the game for Moment of Truth, a shame given the possibilities elsewhere in this record. The album as a whole fails to move E.L.O. to the grounded, often heartfelt lyrical occasions guided by Lynne. Instead, there is a literal space-age style to their lyrics and they fade into a space-rock parody of what the band once was. A case of being too worried about the alienation of fans with abstract ideas, and instead the onus is on the imagery of the past to do the heavy lifting Groucutt and company cannot. Vapid work, ultimately. One More Tomorrow would work if, like most of the other tracks with potential, they were not so dependent on the orchestral aspect and not as repetitive as E.L.O. at their lowest. Banal moments like Don’t Wanna get to the core of what is wrong with this iteration of the band. They are lazy instrumentalists working with lacklustre lyrics.
Abysmal, bloated and verging on the sort of anthems empty hearts will find warmth in. Voices is a disturbing bit of work. But so is Moment of Truth, a vague and asinine attempt at beating what creative juices were left in the saucer-shaped corpse of E.L.O. Lynne would at least pursue other avenues of creativity, and he was better for it. What happens here is a chance for grifters to lay their claim on a band which could have been around with or without them. Loose and light rock at the best of times, Moment of Truth is a sobering experience – one which should be ranked around those lowly parts of The Beach Boys or The Velvet Underground at their very worst. Such is the trajectory of a band that loses their main players.
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