Jeff Lynne’s second album under his name four years after the first one has the same feel and style of all his previous 12 albums under the ELO tag. As you listen to each track it reminds of you some of his previous hits or styles from those songs. Lynne known for being a perfectionist when it comes to how the whole album sounds played essentially all the instruments on this album showing how talented he is as a musician, songwriter and singer. He made sure as producer all the instruments and sound effects all have a purpose and sound good once woven together like he was famous for when producing the Beatles Anthology, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Roy Orbison, Bryan Adams, Tom Petty and The Traveling Wilburys.
Lynne starts you off with one of the best songs on the album that rocks out like a previous hit “Showdown” in “From out of nowhere” the title track. He said that the first track he wrote for the album was the title track and said it was named “From Out of Nowhere” as “that’s exactly where it came from”.
The next few songs “Help yourself”, “All of my love” and “Losing you” are emotional sounds you can tell from his vocals he is upset or sad over a woman like a love song that he is moving on/she is leaving him. In “Help yourself” the chorus is super catchy and has great piano work. “All of my love” is the love ballet on the album and “Losing you” is the most beautiful song on the album.
The other songs that really rock out are “One more time” which sounds like his “Roll over Beethoven” cover. While “Sci-Fi woman” has interesting space sound effects with a synthesizer while it tells an interesting story as it reminds me of “Mr. Blue Sky” and others hits with that kind of sound. “Going out on me” does rock out but sounds like he is singing the blues plus sounds like 1950s doo-wop as well complaining about his love life like on previous songs.
The second most beautiful song on the album is “Songbird” which is the last song on the album. He gets really emotional on this track like he does on “Losing you” but has the bluesy elements like “Going out on me” has but is just overall a sad song when you closely listen to it. The worst song on this album is not a bad song but it doesn’t have the same elements the other songs do which is rocking out or sounding like a beautiful song full of emotions or about love. “Down came the rain” is catchy and is an ok song to listen to but not one to go out of your way for, and if an album has only one real clunker then overall it’s a good album. ELO usually does not put out a bad album nor could Lynne ever really do that as the master producer he is.
I would have put the remaining song last “Time of our live” as it is a very emotional introspective of his life/his career as whole which sounds like he is looking back. It has catchy words and typical catchy music as well and it really caps of how emotional this album is. He talks about himself on stage every night putting on a good show while giving people the time of their lives. He even mentions his hit “Telephone line” in the song and it also rocks out.
Overall it is a nice addition to the ELO/Jeff Lynne’s ELO catalog as it was better than the previous one “Alone in the universe. They do not have many bad albums, which does not mean they have any bad songs or subpar albums but no one can be perfect not even the Beatles were. All the fans of ELO should be happy he can still tour and make new music that does not affect the legacy he has left on the world and rock music as a whole, it just adds to it.
But, bottom line does this album need to be in my collection if I'm not a completist?