Another album, another personnel change. The revolving door that is Fleetwood Mac turns once again as Bob Welch makes his final appearance, and a nice farewell it is. Welch shares songwriting chores with Christine McVie, which makes the album a slightly bipolar but still enjoyable affair, Welch\u2019s more experimental songs and rockers trading off with McVie\u2019s romantic pop-flavored ballads. <\/p>\n
This album is a transitional one, further progressing the band\u2019s already-clear move towards mainstream pop-rock, most evident in McVie\u2019s compositions. Welch\u2019s compositions were always strongest when he stretched the boundaries of traditional rock styling, but he keeps things pretty straightforward for the most part here. That\u2019s not to say he doesn\u2019t stretch out beyond the mainstream rock formula a bit. <\/p>\n
Welch\u2019s atmospheric, layered guitars flavor the album nicely. His spacey guitar work is stellar on the dark \u201cComing Home\u201d and it saves \u201cBermuda Triangle\u201d from being a rather pedestrian and, well, dorky affair. \u201cBorn Enchanter\u201d is another nice track featuring one of Welch\u2019s signature trippy grooves. His more traditional rock songs don\u2019t fare as well, however. \u201cShe\u2019s Changing Me\u201d and \u201cSilver Heels\u201d just don\u2019t bring much to the table, although \u201dHeels\u201d includes the great lyric \u201cIf I could sing like Paul McCartney \/ or get funky like Etta James \/ I’d never change.\u201d <\/p>\n
McVie provides a couple of great tracks. \u201cCome A Little Bit Closer\u201d is a beautiful up-tempo ballad that should have been a hit, but was probably little light for AOR radio back in \u201974. Regardless, her voice is great and accompanied by some soulful pedal steel guitar; it\u2019s a standout track from her long and fruitful career. \u201cBad Love\u201d is a little on the heavier side than we\u2019re used to and Welch\u2019s Santana-flavored guitar work propels the song nicely over Fleetwood\u2019s tribal drumming. <\/p>\n
Welch would be missed, but also soon overshadowed by a couple of new additions a year later when The Mac began its propulsive flight to superstardom. Overall, I find this one of the most enjoyable of post-Peter Green \/ pre-Rumours-era albums. A little uneven, but a good listen. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":28923,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5794],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-40426","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-fleetwood-mac","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40426"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}