Seeds We Sow [CD]

Like all of Lindsey's solo albums, this will surely get better with repeated listens. But even fresh out the can - man, this is good!
This is for sure Lindsey as he wants to be heard, up close and personal. It's like being in the audience at a private performance. "Hold up Lindsey, let me fill our glasses before the next number....say when...."

This album really hangs together too. It's like going on a trip led by a slightly different Lindsey from the one we've come to know of late. The man behind the songs here is still very contented. That he now has the "Satisfied Mind" he covered in his first solo album in '91 (Law & Order) is probably an impression familiar to anyone who has followed his music. I hope Lindsey truly has found lasting happiness in love and fatherhood, but whatever is feeding his writing it is certainly getting better and better. This album reveals a reflective but not self-absorbed Lindsey, who in his own songs looks not just inwards but outwards too, speaking to a much wider audience now than just those of us who have grown up with him. This is an invitation to see the world as he has come to see it, through his mature and poetic eyes. It surely is a beautiful place.

I think "beautiful" is the best word for this album. "Seeds" is Lindsey at the peak of his game (and with no signs of letting up). His guitar playing is unique, sometimes haunting and sometimes just plain impossibly good, the folk-rock equivalent of classical virtuoso. He really should get (even) more acclaim for it.

I'd suggest that to get the most from this album, make sure you first listen to it is at a time and somewhere you can give it full attention. Break out some light refreshments - chocolate or wine are good, maybe not together though. Lower the lights. Glance at or think of a loved one. Sit back. Leave some foot tapping room. Hit play. Prepare to be amazed.

The tracks themselves are varied, and cover a spectrum from the rocky to the final poetic recital. I think this album is perhaps closest in sound or spirit to Out of the Cradle, but some of the playing reminds me of the much earlier Go Insane. I'm sure others will have their own ideas and if you've enjoyed any of his previous ones you'll like this. Really though there is nothing "old" sounding here. Even the Stones cover which at first seemed to me an odd choice fits in well. Whispered to us over the gentlest finger-plucking the song becomes as much Lindsey's own as if he'd written it himself.

Whether or not you are new to Lindsey, I suggest you don't do more than sneak the briefest of preview-listens from the .com site if you really have to. Better still, don't sneak any peaks at all. This is an album with something of a "journey" to it. I'd say it is best enjoyed like a good film, without spoilers!

Finally, there has been some discussion of "loud" mastering on the US site. It's true that in some places the sound does max out. This isn't an "audiophile" release. I would have preferred a less compressed sound in those places but even so these "blasts" are well placed and tend to bring the guitar to the front, so for me don't spoil what really is a masterpiece. My guitar playing daughter loves this and is awe. This also means Lindsey gets the seal of "cool" from her. Wish we could get to see him perform some time even more now. Please don't forget us in UK.

Lindsey's latest solo album contains the guitar wizardry expected if you are familiar with his work, either as a solo artist or Fleetwood Mac band member. Remembering how I was stopped in my tracks after pressing Play on his album "Under the Skin" I was expecting more of the same, as we had with Gift of Screws too. I was not disappointed. He has created an all round polished album with great new sounds and yet you can hear tones of Fleetwood Mac at their best.

His solo album "Out of the Cradle" will always be one of my favourite ever records, yet I am enjoying these sounds just as much right now, and best of all there is a UK tour too.

Here's more pretty music to celebrate! Pop-Mac maestro Lindsey Buckingham's sixth solo album [and I am not really familiar with the others] is well beyond the seeding stage, being the seasoned pro that he is, and his distinctive musical landscape - the one I am more familar with in post-blues Fleetwood Max - is much in evidence here.

Title track 'Seeds We Sow' begins with that distinctive sound in the finger-plucked guitar, and this is augmented by the electrifed same and overdubbed vocal harmonies of second track 'In Our Own Time' [where I also hear echos of Roy Harper guitar playing]. Third track 'Illumination' is perhaps the first most Macesque on the album, and it's hardly surprising to get this. Fourth 'That's The Way That Love Goes' is similar and a clear pop ditty in its title and brisk chorus.

Stand-out track is fifth 'Stars Are Crazy' with its opening, beautiful and idiosyncratic Taylor Guitar 814ce fretwork, leading to echoing vocal in the rising melody and chorus. The next 'When She Comes Down' is exquisite with its vocal overdubs to produce such a glorious chorus. Seventh track 'Rock Away Blind' continues the distinctive finger-plucked focus and has a classic descending chorus. Eigth 'One Take' is much more adventurous and complex in its arrangement - all instruments and production undertaken by Buckinham on this wholly independent release - and also in the charged lyrics about the avarice of the song's persona, punctuated by a wonderful choric interlude followed by an equally wonderful guitar shred.

Penultimate track 'End Of Time' is a pop masterclass, again largely in the song's chorus, and the closing Stones' song 'She Smiled Sweetly' is sweetly unadorned in its honest and occasionally strained vocal at Lindsey's lower vocal register and I like that candour and confidence.