Horses, Horses, in The End The Light Remains Pure

Recorded at Long Beach Auditorium on May 12, 1974, ELO's The Night the Light Went On was a limited release in a handful of countries in the mid-'70s. The show was unusually raw and spirited, and the resulting performance is ferocious, like little else the band ever delivered. The material is all rooted in the group's first three albums…

Third time up for sightless guitar wunderkid Jeff Healey and gang; Feel This offers the power trio's meatiest and most satisfying outing. JHB's brand of roadhouse rock can be somewhat bland on disc; here the group captures much more of its trademark live intensity than in the past. The unobtrusive addition of keyboards adds a more expansive dimension to several tracks. Boogie fans will want to check out the ZZ Top-like "Cruel Little Number"; blues-rockers will come away satisfied with the likes of "House That Love Built." Hip-hop connoisseurs, on the other hand, will likely want to avoid JHB's rap spoof on "If You Can't Feel Anything Else."

This is an attractive recording with a style very much suited to the unique repertoire on the program. These are not operatic duets but chamber pieces, to texts of mostly unknown poets, accompanied by a smooth continuo group consisting of cello, archlute, and director Robert King on keyboards. Many of them were written in Italy, early in Handel's career, but he returned to the form during his highly public years in the 1740s. The booklet makes much of the music's similarity to Handel's operatic language, and indeed some of the tunes here will be familiar. Sample the first part of Se tu non lasci amore, track 11, some of which turns up again in "O Death, Where Is Thy Sting?" from Messiah.