Gift of Screws Reviews

[John Run]

I have written quite a few times about the engineering choices that Lindsey has made on SYW, UTS, and now GOS. These are choices that Lindsey is making. I can't say I agree with them, but they are his choices on his album. It happens to work for me on GOS. On UTS it did not. SYW which contains some great songs, lost a lot of its impact for me because of the engineering choices he and Mark Needham made. A co-producer to work with Lindsey who is an engineer, I think would be a benefit, but lets face it, Lindsey is the artist and if this is his creative vision then no co-producer or engineer is going to alter that.

[MacMan]

Lindsey Buckingham's 'Gift' is a keeper

Kansas City Star

The story behind his new album is all about Lindsey Buckingham’s loyalty to Fleetwood Mac. He wrote enough material for a solo album he intended to release as “Gift of Screws” early this decade. Instead, all but three of those songs ended up on “Say You Will,” a Fleetwood Mac album released in 2003.

Five years and one solo album later – the rather sedate “Under the Skin” – Buckingham has released an updated version of “Screws” (due in stores today), and it sounds like the time and remodeling could have been a stroke of good fortune: This is arguably his best solo album yet.

Over the course of 10 songs (40 minutes) he delivers all the techniques, traits and impulses that have made him respected and admired by fans who think he's so under-respected: the rampant alt-punk moments in “Tusk”; the bright-glossy pop sounds of “Law and Order”; his undying fondness for the Beach Boys and the Wilson brothers; and the avant-pop/rock moments in the epic and deranged “Go Insane.” If there was ever the slightest debate over who had the biggest creative engine in the Mac, this ought to settle it once and for all.

Buckingham is as much a guitar virtuoso as he is a songwriter and rock star, and “Screws” is a loaded with memorable and diverse guitar moments. The opener, “Great Day,” ends with one of those: a lead that sounds like it’s trying to uncage itself to save its life. From there, he glides into “Tim Precious Time,” which rides a long, easy wave of acoustic guitar arpeggios. Then comes “Did You Miss Me,” a nuts-and-bolts California pop song that would have been a great summer radio hit (it resembles “Trouble” from “Law and Order”). Unlike “Skin,” which never really shifted from its low-key, sepia-tone mood, “Screws” never stands still.

“I Wanna Wait For You” has the kind of blues vibe we heard way back in “World Turning” or “The Chain.” "Treason" is a lovely, ambient hymn, in the vein of "That's All for Everyone," from "Tusk."

Any Fleetwood Mac resemblances aren’t necessarily accidental: Mick Fleetwood and John McVie stand in as the rhythm section on a couple of songs, including “Love Runs Deeper,” a big, percussive and melodic rock anthem, like“Go Your Own Way.”

The big swerve comes late, in the incendiary title track, where Buckingham taps into his punk fetish and goes a little insane. The song is a hurricane of drums, guitars, jackhammer rhythms, manic vocals and strident lyrics, adapted from the poetry of Emily Dickinson: “Way down here / Everybody needs / Authority makes us bleed, bleed, bleed,” he screams and then cackles maniacally. And it feels so refreshing to hear him sound so visceral and unhinged again.

Timothy Finn, The Star

[JamieSPC]

Originally Posted by ajmccarrell

Critics are not engineers. Period. How many of these guys spent countless hours at a board trying to make things sound good. Zero.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Honestly, I've always wondered if Needham had no choice. I know I've had tracks where I've accidently let the click bleed. Then like I'm stuck with an organ pad or some track with some cool organic licks I could never do again if I tried a million times that has a click. On analog that would be even harder if not impossible to fix, right?

Anyway, maybe it is LB's "artistic choice." Everybody's a critic, so I'll be one, too: It's a bad choice.

It's an opinion.

~Jamie

[ajmccarrell]

Originally Posted by JamieSPC

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Honestly, I've always wondered if Needham had no choice. I know I've had tracks where I've accidently let the click bleed. Then like I'm stuck with an organ pad or some track with some cool organic licks I could never do again if I tried a million times that has a click. On analog that would be even harder if not impossible to fix, right?

Anyway, maybe it is LB's "artistic choice." Everybody's a critic, so I'll be one, too: It's a bad choice.

It's an opinion.

~Jamie

I've done that too. On my tune "Only One" the steel guitar is blended with the lead by accident. I tried redoing the lead, but I could never get the same energy again, so I left it.

[Betsy]

Originally Posted by JamieSPC

As much as I love FM and Lindsey, and am glad to have new material, this is dead-on.

...Biggest question in my mind has always been how the metronome ended up on some of the SYW tracks since they went through mixdown? I found that embarrassing for the band, actually. A lot of my engineer friends made tremendous fun of that record, and wondered if since it was analog to start with that the click got on the tapes somehow and couldn't be wiped out.
~Jamie

I have found the topics you've been discussing very intriguing. Since I am a novice, could you tell me what songs to listen to on SWY that have the metronome on them?

[stefan]

Originally Posted by ajmccarrell

Critics are not engineers. Period. How many of these guys spent countless hours at a board trying to make things sound good. Zero.

You don't have to be a cow to know how a steak tastes.

I did not think there were still people left who think only actors can understand films and only goalgetters can perceive a good game and only novelists know how to interprete a book.

[jbrownsjr]

Originally Posted by ajmccarrell

Yay! Someone who agrees with me!

He should have Moncrieff do the mixing and mastering, he's vastly better at it than Mark Needham. Plus, Moncrieff got on my case if I had printed compression, even though it was needed to keep Alex's voice from distorting with all the gear turned down (that girl has some lungs!!!). He said he'd kill my pets if I blended my rhythm and leads again. There's no way he'd let Lindsey get away with this metronome crap. I'm really surprised that he is doing some of this stuff. I mean, the guy really needs to learn how to use his DAW. Real men read instructions.

I agree with you as far as UTS.... The recording tactics he uses are cheap and sort of embarrassing. It's almost like he buys a Yamaha Motif or some other workstation and uses the pre-set rhythms that come with it and just leaves them on there. I have not heard the new album yet, but I did hear the single on his websight and thought it was rather nice and at least had some melody. My problem with Lindsey is that he doesn't really give me anything that I haven't already heard from him. Whisper vocals, tapping on equipment, layers of double tracking... It's not really avant-garde if we've heard it already. It's not master pop, it's low budget... And to my ears it doesn't sound like artisitic choice, it sounds like bad taste. I hope the new album (which I'm trying to avoid until it's released), doesn't have these whispers and tapping etc.... I do love when he laughs like a hyena!! I loved it on Law and Order... And for the record, I think Law and Order is solid, and I think Go Insane is a beautiful album. OOTC is a little less cohesive, but still in my book a great record.

[shackin'up]

Originally Posted by ajmccarrell

Critics are not engineers. Period. How many of these guys spent countless hours at a board trying to make things sound good. Zero.

Engineers are not musiclovers, they are one-track-mind technicians. (same logic as yours here). Lindsey Buckingham is an artist that is very much known as a soundconstructor. On his last two solo-albums he's aiming for a hifi lofi sound. 90 percent of the engineers iron music flat. He won't let that happen on his solo-outings. Yes, he's breaking new grounds again and your remarks are proof of that: your opinions proof that you have a conservative taste. Nothing wrong with that, but don't read LB's music with the same mindset. He's trying to make a point for almost 30 years and you still don't get it.

You're constantly asking us to limewire the new album so that the whole world can get it for free: you embraced the modern age when it comes to the industry: we are the home-distributors of today. Now there's a mainsteam artist who adds that democratic view in his sound: hometape qualities. He even tried to express his sympathy for this worldwide movement in his selfshot documentary on his Basshall DVD. Are you deaf and blind, dude, or don´t you WANT to hear it, because you´re waiting for Rumours II for 31 years.

Well who am I to keep you down....

[shackin'up]

Originally Posted by stefan

You don't have to be a cow to know how a steak tastes.

I did not think there were still people left who think only actors can understand films and only goalgetters can perceive a good game and only novelists know how to interprete a book.

Hooray. A poster with a brain.

[gypsysoul]

He's had quite a few reviews in British newspapers, all of the ones I've seen are positive.
Here's one:

'You may not have heard of Lindsey Buckingham but you'll be familiar with his work. He's the man behind Fleetwood Mac's Rumours album as well as the follow up Tusk, a sprawling experimental record that could not have been more different to its predecessor.
Buckingham's obscurity is a shame as his solo albums have consistently welded the pop nous of Rumours to the restless nature of Tusk.
Nearing 60 now he has made one of the albums of his life. Love runs deeper is a surging rush of guitar pop that benefits from a big chorus and a thrilling avalanche of massed accoustic guitars, an approach that also works on The right place to fade. Well worth investigating.'

A second one:
The major powerhouse and songwriter behind FM's golden era, Buckingham's knack for blending experimentation and killer hooks finds sharp focus on his fifth solo album.
Buckingham unleashes incendiary guitar licks aplenty. Clash meets Beach Boys style rocking fun and mixes a feel for exotic topicality with seasoned sensitivity and political committment.'

[jbrownsjr]

Originally Posted by shackin'up

Hooray. A poster with a brain.

shackin up is all you wanna do

[shackin'up]

Originally Posted by jbrownsjr

shackin up is all you wanna do

How can I when you won't take it from me?

[jbrownsjr]

Originally Posted by shackin'up

How can I when you won't take it from me?

metronomes are all you wanna do

[ajmccarrell]

Originally Posted by shackin'up

Engineers are not musiclovers, they are one-track-mind technicians. (same logic as yours here). Lindsey Buckingham is an artist that is very much known as a soundconstructor. On his last two solo-albums he's aiming for a hifi lofi sound. 90 percent of the engineers iron music flat. He won't let that happen on his solo-outings. Yes, he's breaking new grounds again and your remarks are proof of that: your opinions proof that you have a conservative taste. Nothing wrong with that, but don't read LB's music with the same mindset. He's trying to make a point for almost 30 years and you still don't get it.

You're constantly asking us to limewire the new album so that the whole world can get it for free: you embraced the modern age when it comes to the industry: we are the home-distributors of today. Now there's a mainsteam artist who adds that democratic view in his sound: hometape qualities. He even tried to express his sympathy for this worldwide movement in his selfshot documentary on his Basshall DVD. Are you deaf and blind, dude, or don´t you WANT to hear it, because you´re waiting for Rumours II for 31 years.

Well who am I to keep you down....

Your comments are mostly a bunch of assumptions. Try putting an album together and see what you think then. I don't think it's artistic if a guy wants to use a PC mic on his desktop, there's a such thing as artistic and there's a such thing as just plain unprofessional. I can't speak for the other guy, but I started engineering because I'm a musician first a foremost. I'm a rotten engineer, just ask Tom Moncrieff. However, even I know not to do some of the crap Lindsey is doing. I mean, come on, from the cardboard inserts, the metronome noises, the tapping on mics, selling his house, etc... it's clear the guy has run out of money. I'm only 26 and I wan't that fond of Rumours, I thought it sounded tinny, so I couldn't have been waiting for it for 31 years. I'm frankly sick of Rumours. I'm a fan because of Go Insane, OOTC, and anything Tango on. I was more hoping for OOTC part II, which this clearly isn't. Law and Order was an almost unlistenable mess, as far as I'm concerned. Your opinion is WAY too hostile for my simply expressing a series of very valid criticisms. You wanted to talk about hometape qualities, well I can't think of a single demo I've heard from any amateur musician I've tried to record that would have used the built in metronome sounds.... and I've recorded some seriously unprofessional and bizarre stuff.

[ajmccarrell]

Originally Posted by shackin'up

Hooray. A poster with a brain.

Even a cow could spot bad recording technique. I just think some people will defend mediocre effort no matter what.