Sunday, February 5, 2012

Album Review: Seeds We Sow by Lindsey Buckingham

I can only hope that at 62 I can still put this much passion and energy into a project the way that Buckingham did for this album.  Many musicians hit their peak performance in their mid 20's.  Buckingham at 62 sounds like he's still hitting for the rafters and delivers a very solid album. 

There are a few things here that are very interesting.  One piece is how Buckingham recorded the album.  It was done in his home studio and he is the only performer on all but one song on the album.  Despite that he took the time to construct, layer, and produce fully realized songs.  He didn't just dial in an acoustic set which he could have easily done as his guitar work on this album is brilliant.  No he fully flushed out every song. 

Second thing going on here which really drew me to this album was the lyrics.  Whether on purpose or not Buckingham has created a set of 10 new songs and one cover which are all reflective in nature.  Either looking at love or life the songs here have a thoughtful air to them.  This makes the album a great choice for a late night drive alone through the countryside. 

Of course all of this work is done with Buckingham's unique pop sense which he brought to fruition so effectively back in the day with Fleetwood Mac.  Buckingham still has that same unique sound, but it still works even 40 years later. 

On top of that Buckingham has made one song which will be a strong candidate for my song of the year and even song of the decade.  "Stars Are Crazy" lyrically is a simple song about the pain of a broken relationship.  As I said earlier it is a reflective song but Buckingham delivers it with a fully emotional performance and has placed it in the middle of some brilliant production work.  The pulse and drive of the guitars on this song bring the emotions of the lyrics to a masterful peak and is a rare beautiful piece of work. 

Following the Rhapsody rating method I give it 3 out of 5 stars for Pretty Good.

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