ALBUM REVIEW:
LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM – GIFT OF SCREWS

Fleetwood Mac man’s punchy pop-rock manifesto

He was, incredibly, the new wave one in Fleetwood Mac, but Lindsey Buckingham’s much-tromboned love of the Gang Of Four, Prag Vec and the Delta Five (or similar) never really seemed to make it into his music. (Certainly very few people who ever heard Love Like Anthrax ever went on to make a double album like Tusk). But he’s always had more of an adventurous spirit than his fellow band members. And this presumably why Mick Fleetwood and the McVies invited Stevie Nicks and him to join their old blues band, effectively bolting a Mustang body onto an old Bentley.

In fact, Buckingham’s extra-curricular creativity has been something of a problem for him, in that he keeps writing a lot of the best songs in his old band, all the while initially intending them for himself. Thus the first incarnation of Gift Of Screws which he worked on between 1995 and 2001, and which was, in a way, his Smile. A double album, it never came out, as Buckingham was persuaded to stripmine seven of its best songs for Fleetwood Mac, who duly recorded them, had big hits, and went away again. Buckingham released instead the perfectly acceptable Under The Skin in 2006, and no more was heard of Gift Of Screws until, as they used to say on Tomorrow’s World, now, that is. Continue reading Gift Of Screws – Uncut Magazine Review + Q&A →

The Sunday Times (UK)
September 14, 2008

Lindsey Buckingham: Gift of Screws
The Sunday Times review
Dan Cairns

Buckingham’s last solo album, 2006’s Under the Skin, was a thing of wonder and beauty, but Gift of Screws finds him on even finer form. Fated for ever to be thought of as the man who reshaped Fleetwood Mac into a world-conquering rock band, the guitarist issues albums that, if they bore the group’s name, would sell by the bucketload; and he’s fated, too, to have his unsung status as one of the great geniuses of American sonic architecture obscured by his talent for undislodgable melody lines and radio-friendly hooks (though the hits invariably contained some deeply eccentric music-making). Here, commercial Lindsey again does battle with his darker, more experimental side. Great Day is pure Tusk-era Mac, its refrain of “It was a great day” shadowed by the characteristically droll riposte “It wasn’t such a great day”. Time Precious Time finds him giddily looping and lapping his extraordinary guitar-playing; Did You Miss Me may be the most beautiful song he has ever written; Love Runs Deeper just needs Ms Nicks on harmonies to scoot up the charts; Underground bemoans an entertainment industry interested only in instant cash prizes (“They heard 15 seconds, and that was enough”); the title track’s yelps and howls are almost sectionable; Treason nails the neocon age of permissible torture and executive malfeasance, to the sweetest of tunes. Sensational.

Warner Bros 9362498334

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/cd_reviews/article4734208.ece

Lindsey Buckingham tells our correspondent how he found happiness after the madness of Fleetwood Mac

Miles beyond Sunset Strip, beyond the Hollywood sign and Laurel Canyon, a familiar sound is coming from a rehearsal stage.

The opening couplet of Go Your Own Way wafts across the Warner Brothers lot in Burbank, California: “Loving you/ Isn’t the right thing to do . . .” The Fleetwood Mac legend Lindsey Buckingham is in final rehearsals for a six-week solo tour. A tour de force of Californian angst, the song first appeared on Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours album – whose smooth curves masked a partner-swapping, drug-snorting epic of dysfunction. Those songs still resonate today – in recent months both Vampire Weekend and Fleet Foxes have covered Mac songs. Continue reading The Mac and me | The Times →

The Times
September 13, 2008
John Mulvey

It is rarely edifying to hear a multimillion-selling rock star whinge about lack of credibility. But on his previous solo album, Under the Skin, Buckingham just about got away with it. Buckingham, remember, was the man who had propelled Fleetwood Mac to their commercial zenith in the mid-1970s. And consequently, he was also one of the prime musical enemies of anyone who had invigorated their record collections with punk rock.

In the past few years, however, Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac have undergone something of a critical rehabilitation. Buckingham’s obsessive perfectionism in the studio, his occasionally deranged sonic experiments, and the excruciating emotional honesty that he shares with all his old bandmates are seen as fine things. On Under the Skin, a little bit of praise seemed to have pushed Buckingham into a doggedly solipsistic display of his leftfield chops. The album began with him noting: “Reading the paper, saw a review/ Said I was a visionary, but nobody knew,” and mainly consisted of him constructing nervy guitar loops in what may well have been his bedroom. A lovely album, but one of strategically limited appeal.

Gift of Screws is a more varied affair. There are fantastic solo workouts, such as Time Precious Time, on which Buckingham yelps harmoniously over some frantically intricate acoustic guitar. But then there are also pop songs – Love Runs Deeper and Did You Miss Me – that are blessed with the same combination of stadium thump and spiritual fragility that proved so lucrative for Fleetwood Mac.

Since that band’s venerable rhythm section – Mick Fleetwood and John McVie – contribute to Gift of Screws it is tempting to wonder why Buckingham did not save these songs for the next Fleetwood Mac album. But then an earlier solo album, also entitled Gift of Screws, was aborted, and a good few songs from that turned up on the Mac’s Say You Will in 2003. Maybe this time, Buckingham anxiously wants to prove that he can do it all himself, from avant-garde guitar noodles to fabulously airbrushed pop. The critical acclaim is in the bag these days. Now, if only he could sell millions without the Fleetwood Mac brand name.

(Reprise, TMS £12.99, call 0845 6026328)