Anybody who saw Fleetwood Mac at their recent MSG gig went away mightily impressend with the band and the rhythm section as well as the star couple front and center, and new material like "Sad Angel" as much as the classics and the semi-classics and the deep album cuts.
At that time, the band announced a new EP would be released soon and soon enough here it is but it is a bit of a disappointed. Somewhere between blowing it on the stage and recording it in the studio, the energy level dipped. This is most obvious on lead off song "Sad Angel". It brought the house down on stage, jumping over its somewhat sterile ode to Stevie lyric (fight the war, indeed) but on stage it is fully charged and powerful and here it is acoustic minded and blanded out. Wait, that's too harsh, it is still damn good but it needs a rethink.
Much better is a song that didn't work as well on stage, "Without". Dating from
Buckingham-Nick's pre-Mac days, it is a refurbished take on an intense and private romance. A love song duet for a crafty and attractive acoustic guitar lick and Nick taking the lead and Buckingham following. Very simple, they were really young at the same time, it is a terrific little numberl. The best in decades by Mac (though not the best by Buckingham, whose last solo album Seeds we Sow (and indeed the one before that!) were vastly better to the two dogs that close out the EP. Neither of these songs work -maybe, maybe "Miss Fantasy" but really, I'm having to try too hard to like it. And none of the four songs show Lindsey's prowess on electric guitar -he is one of the finest players around.
A major disappointment
Grade: B-