Extended Play Reviews

[michelej1]

Just this excerpt from The Music Network, by Nathan Jolly

http://www.themusicnetwork.com/music...l-in-a-decade/

While we aren't wild about the prospects of a song called Miss Fantasy penned by a 63-year-old Lindsey Buckingham, we are thrilled beyond belief that Fleetwood Mac have released their first new music since 2003's muted Say You Will, an album marred by the still-strained relationship between Nicks and Buckingham.

[michelej1]

The Guardian, UK May 1, 2013 by Sean Michaels

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013...erial-released

Fleetwood Mac have unveiled their first new music in a decade. Without fanfare or a marketing campaign, the band released their four-song EP direct to iTunes on 30 April.

The release, simply titled Extended Play, comprises a quartet of tunes: three originals by Lindsey Buckingham and one by Stevie Nicks, written in 1973 when the pair were still the duo Buckingham Nicks. This is hardly a set of sexagenarians' basement tapes: Without You – not be confused with the Danny Kirwan-written Mac song of the same name – and Sad Angel are as shiny as Rumours, and even the lonely piano ballad, It Takes Time, has a dramatic synths/strings coda.

Buckingham revealed plans for the EP at a gig in Philadelphia earlier this month – the band have been performing some of the new songs on their current tour. "It's the best stuff we've done in a long time," he said, promising that the record would be out "in a few days". It took a few weeks, instead, but within hours of appearing on iTunes, Extended Play had appeared in the digital shop's top 10 chart, though it has since dropped.

"We all felt that it would be great to go into the studio and record new material before embarking on this tour and the result has been remarkable," Buckingham said in a statement. Nicks has previously indicated that Fleetwood Mac would only record another full-length if she felt certain fans would buy it. "Big, long albums don't seem to be what everybody wants these days," she told Billboard in February. "[Let's] see if the world does want more music from us … If we get that feeling, that they do want another 10 songs, we can reassess."

One of Buckingham's new songs is an explicit response to Nicks's musical reticence. "At the moment [Sad Angel] was being written, I was really thinking about the fact that [Stevie] and I were not agreeing on the idea of an album," he recently told MSN. "The chorus is, 'Hello, sad angel, have you come to fight the war?' It goes on to talk about 'the crowd's calling out for more' … [Sad Angel and Miss Fantasy] are songs about Stevie and me."

Prior to Extended Play, Fleetwood Mac's most recent new recording was the 2003 album Say You Will. That record reached No 6 on the UK album charts, and achieved gold sales, but fell well short of the band's commercial peak from 1975 to 1987. The band have sold more than 100m albums worldwide.

Fleetwood Mac are currently in the midst of a North American tour, with plans to visit the UK and Europe this fall.

[michelej1]

Slate by Alex Heimbach, April 30, 2013

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/...gs_listen.html

Fleetwood Mac, which put out a new EP today, was one of the few music choices my parents and I could agree on. I would scream along with the rocking chorus of “The Chain” on the way to school and dance around the house to “Little Lies.” Since then, my appreciation for the band—from Lindsey Buckingham’s virtuosic guitar playing to the group’s layered harmonies—has grown more sophisticated, but the songs still pack the simple, emotional wallop they did for me 15 years ago.


Alternately credited with and cursed for creating “adult contemporary,” the members of Fleetwood Mac are almost as famous for their personal drama as for their classic songs. Originally, though, Fleetwood Mac was a simple British blues band, formed in 1967 by guitarist Peter Green and named after drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie. This lineup, with a few additions, put out three albums, which did well in the U.K., but received little attention stateside. (One of the singles from that era, “Black Magic Woman,” became a major hit for Santana.) In 1970, Green left the band after suffering from a mental breakdown (he was later diagnosed as schizophrenic). A year later Christine McVie, John’s new wife, officially joined. A keyboardist who wrote her own music, Christine increasingly came to shape the band’s sound. Mick and the McVies stuck together through the early ’70s and more personnel changes—one of their guitarists joined the Children of God and another had an affair with Fleetwood’s wife—as they tried to replicate their British success in the U.S.


They didn’t have much luck until 1974, when Mick recruited the American folk duo Buckingham Nicks. For their first album together, this new version of Fleetwood Mac combined Christine’s songs with some that Lindsey and Stevie had already written. The eponymous result finally brought the band the American popularity they’d been looking for, selling five million copies and reaching No. 1 on the charts. It had four hit singles, including McVie’s poppy “Say You Love Me” and Nicks’ haunting “Rhiannon,” which highlighted her wild performance style.


Success also brought trouble, as it does. The band’s two couples began to unravel—as did Mick Fleetwood’s marriage to model Jenny Boyd—just as they returned to the studio. And so the musical legend of Rumours was born: The album is made up of songs that Christine, Lindsey, and Stevie wrote about their dissolving relationships. The most famous of these are Buckingham and Nicks’ dueling takes on their doomed love, her ethereal “Dreams” and his aggressive “Go Your Own Way.” But at the heart of the album is the only song all five of the band members ever collaborated on, “The Chain,” which emphasizes their commitment to carrying on as a group despite their personal disagreements.


After the massive sales of Rumours, the studio invested heavily in the band’s follow-up. But Buckingham was determined not to repeat himself and began experimenting with different recording techniques (including, for instance, laying on a tile floor as he sang into the microphone). Meanwhile, Stevie had embarked on a secret affair with Mick—which ended, much to her chagrin, when he left her for her best friend. Eighteen months and the largest recording budget of all time produced the messy Tusk. The album sold about a quarter of the copies its predecessor did, but the unnerving title track, which features the USC marching band, balances Buckingham’s desire for punky weirdness and the rest of the band’s gift for grandeur.


The band put out two albums in the ’80s: 1982’s Mirage—which was largely overshadowed by Nicks’ solo release Belladonna—and 1987’s Tango in the Night. Tango was troubled; the band’s lifestyle remained extravagant and Nicks had abandoned coke for Klonopin, which made her spacey and unreliable. Buckingham and McVie, who had a hit with my old favorite, “Little Lies,” took over most of the songwriting duties, but Nicks, with the help of Sandy Stewart, still managed to contribute one great song, the cheerful “Seven Wonders.”


After another blow-up with Nicks, Buckingham left the band right before the Tango in the Night tour. The split wasn’t permanent, but the band never really recovered; in 1997, Christine McVie permanently retired from Fleetwood Mac. The remaining foursome has toured sporadically since then. Their 2003 album, Say You Will, was fairly successful, but failed to live up to their earlier work.


The new EP is the band’s first new material since then. The best of its tracks, “Sad Angel,” hearkens back to the catchy pop-rock of Rumours, rather than the smoothed-out sound of their more recent stuff. Perhaps they’ve rediscovered the knack they used to have for transmuting a troubled dynamic into powerful songs, though it’s hard to tell on the basis of just three new songs, all by Buckingham. (The fourth track, “Without You,” is an old Buckingham Nicks tune.) However it turns out, I’ll always have “The Chain.” And if you’ve never given the band much thought, you’ll find 10 tracks to get you started below, both as a Spotify playlist and on YouTube and Amazon. Enjoy.

[elle]

[michelej1]

New music review: Extended Play, Fleetwood Mac

By Bernard Perusse, The Montreal Gazette May 1, 2013


Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/enter...#ixzz2S7A2HpBp

It wasn't quite the blindside of David Bowie's sudden emergence in January with new music. Lindsey Buckingham had started the jungle telegraph with an announcement at Fleetwood Mac's April 6 concert in Philadelphia that the group would release an EP of new material "in a few days."

But the actual appearance of the music yesterday on iTunes still came as a surprise in an era when release dates are etched in stone and the hype machine gets going ages before the music surfaces.

Four tracks from the Mac - one of them a rediscovered oldie - is not the feat Bowie accomplished with 17 unheard songs. But it shares the same decade-long gestation period: this is the group's first fresh recording since the 2003 album Say You Will.

And it's a joyous 18 minutes.

Fans will read all sorts of meanings into the lyrics, which are hard not to connect with Buckingham's often-troubled relationship with Stevie Nicks. It is, after all, the backdrop for rock n' roll's longest-running soap opera.

"It's still evolving, and that's the beauty of it too. I've known Stevie since high school. We were a couple for many, many years, and we've been a musical couple forever," Buckingham said to Rolling Stone. "After all this time you would think there was nothing left to discover, nothing left to work out, no new chapters to be written. But that is not the case - there are new chapters to be written."

"I had a really good time working with him for four days at his house. I got to hang out with his family and his kids, his grown up kids, and really connect with him again. We're pretty proud of what we have done, and we're looking at it through the eyes of wisdom now, instead of through the eyes of jealousy and resentment and anger," Nicks told the same publication.

""Hello, hello sad angel, have you come to fight the war?" Buckingham and Nicks sing in harmony during the killer chorus of opening track Sad Angel, an uptempo, catchy pop-rocker written by Buckingham. In many ways, in fact, the entire EP sounds like a Buckingham solo release: strongly melodic, filled with dreamy hooks and neurotically self-aware.

Without You, which, tellingly, comes from the pre-Mac Buckingham-Nicks era, is the sole track penned by Nicks. It finds the two in a grizzled update of the Everly Brothers sound: over a gorgeous, crisp acoustic jangle, Nicks's rough nasality blends with Buckingham's high tenor in a celebration of where the two have brought each other. The perspective might be 40 years old, but it seems oddly poignant now.

It Takes Time, a stark, but sweet piano ballad, finds Buckingham's protagonist struggling to connect with his own feelings, while Miss Fantasy is quite the stunner: a sunshiny, bittersweet look back, with a chorus that evokes the Beach Boys. As Nicks comes in on harmony, the track soars higher than we could have hoped for.

No word yet on when, or even whether, a physical release will follow.


Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/enter...#ixzz2S79v48kd

[michelej1]

Miami Herald by Howard Cohen May 3, 2013
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/05/0...fleetwood.html

Fleetwood Mac, Extended Play (LMJS Productions) * * * 1/2

Fleetwood Mac’s first new music since 2003’s Say You Will is short on Stevie Nicks, who resisted recording a full album with the group. The resulting four-track EP, released to iTunes as a digital download, makes you wish for more on the strength of Lindsey Buckingham’s three new songs.

Nicks contributes the folksy Without You, a reject from the 1973 sessions for the Buckingham Nicks LP. The pair harmonize over Buckingham’s tinny acoustic strumming. Meh.

Much better: Buckingham’s fresh songs in which he returns to writing crisp, accessible, engaging California pop/rock, like the infectiously melodic and rhythmically driving Sad Angel and the breezy Miss Fantasy, a piquant taste of Mirage-era Mac that makes great use of the famed rhythm section of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie.

His stark solo piano ballad, It Takes Time — imagine Christine McVie’s Songbird as its closest cousin — intrigues the most because it’s unlike anything the guitarist has released.

Nice to report, also, that 37 years after breaking up, those old rumours between Buckingham and Nicks never cease to amuse. Buckingham has said that Sad Angel was written in a bout of anger over Nicks’ reticence to record an album. “Hello, hello, sad angel/Have you come to fight the war/The drums, a fire, a calling ... the crowd calling out for more.” Score one for Team Lindsey.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/05/0...#storylink=cpy

[elle]

http://nickslive.blogspot.com/2013/0...ed-play_3.html

REVIEW: Fleetwood Mac “Extended Play” - "concise burst of fresh songs'

Fleetwood Mac “Extended Play” (iTunes)

In the decade since Fleetwood Mac released 2003's “Say You Will,” a new surge of interest in the group's distinctive pop style has taken hold in the modern pop, alternative and country communities. Recent music by artists as diverse as Cut Copy, Lady Antebellum, Vampire Weekend, Haim, Daft Punk, John Mayer and Little Big Town was inspired by the warmth and harmonic richness of Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham/Stevie Nicks era, and last year's tribute album, “Just Tell Me That You Want Me,” offered persuasive testimony to the band's enduring influence.

But for all the enthusiasm those acts show for Fleetwood Mac's pop shimmer, most would balk at walking a mile in their shoes, and continued tension within the band is a key reason why they only mustered four tracks for “Extended Play,” Fleetwood Mac's first new material since 2003. But this concise burst of fresh songs, mostly co-produced by Buckingham and Mitchell Froom (Crowded House), says more about what it really means to be part of Fleetwood Mac than anything since “Rumours” and “Tusk.” Buckingham takes it on directly with “Sad Angel,” which addresses the challenge of getting Nicks on board with new Mac material while the fans are “calling out for more.” Even the inclusion of “Without You,” an unreleased Buckingham Nicks song, underlines the continued tension — putting the song on “Extended Play” was a compromise after Nicks and Buckingham could not agree on how to handle the 40th anniversary of the “Buckingham Nicks” album.

But Buckingham extends an olive branch with “It Takes Time,” a rare piano ballad from the band since Christine McVie's retirement. The song acknowledges that Buckingham bears some of the burden here, and that he carries his own emotional baggage to every Fleetwood Mac gig. The group wraps up “Extended Play” with Buckingham's “Miss Fantasy,” a wistful uptempo song about “the queen of the underground.” “Everyone whispers when you go, into the silence soft and low/ Ten thousand voices, crying ‘on with the show,” Buckingham sings. Over 35 years after the romantic fissures that nearly wrecked the band, on “Extended Play” Fleetwood Mac proves that some chains never really break.

— George Lang
Newsok.com

[Villavic]

Originally Posted by Josh2003

So Stevie & Lindsey produced Without You, and Mitchell Froom produced the other three tracks. Interesting.

Was Stevie a producer? I didn't know that.

[elle]

http://www.offthetracks.co.nz/fleetw...ended-play-ep/

May 3, 2013 by Simon Sweetman
Fleetwood Mac: Extended Play – EP

Fleetwood Mac

Extended Play – EP

LMJS Productions

Though you could argue it’s phoned in by the title alone, I really like this four-track EP by Fleetwood Mac, the band’s first release in a decade and their second set of recordings sans Christine McVie. Once again her presence is missed – because it’s now just The Stevie and Lindsey Show and her counterpoint was (always) crucial.

Where Say You Will, the band’s last album, was far too long (some 75 minutes) Extended Play is probably just a bit too short – six tracks might have been nice. But it’s a move I applaud. For two (crucial) reasons. Firstly, Fleetwood Mac is a hits-act, running the nostalgia circuit, giving its fans what they want, delivering ****-hot performances, still white-hot with Lindsey’s guitar prowess front and centre, that oh-so-capable rhythm section, Nicks still playing the twirling white-witch bogan-fantasy to the hilt and – yes – The Stevie and Lindsey Show is a big part of the sound and look and story of the band’s tours – as it has been since 1975 (with just a slight break). So fans want to hear the hits and a new album would be a waste of time but a new EP allows them a fan-souvenir and a chance for the band to slip in just a wee bit of new material. A nice touch, I say.

But the other great reason for a four-track EP at this stage in their career – far more important, I say – is this idea of simply offering all you have to say at any one moment and nothing more. Or, put another way, offer up your best work – avoid the filler. So Fleetwood Mac only has four songs they want to share right now. So be it. See reason one above – no one is going to a Fleetwood Mac show for the new material.

I don’t see this move of releasing an EP as misguided, I think it’s smart that a band like Fleetwood Mac releases an EP over an album; that they’ve done so at this stage in their career pleases me. More bands should be releasing just the good material.

So, all that said, is the material on the EP good enough?

For the most part, yes. And – it has to be said – thanks to Lindsey. Three of the four songs are from Buckingham, who really has been doing the heavy-lifting since Tusk. And – in the decade since Say You Will – he’s the Mac member that’s offered the most outside of the band; his solo albums a grand showcase for his skills; each album offering something new, a fresh angle. The other song is one that Buckingham had a hand in way back; has been resurrected.

So, opener, Sad Angel is the sort of immaculate pop song Buckingham has been scrubbing since his first solo album and in the way the riff dissolves into the hook it bears some resemblance to his great solo track Trouble. It’s a strong new addition to the Mac cannon.

Without You is a re-recording of a pre-Mac Buckingham/Nicks demo – and though it’s lightweight it plays into the history and is something for fans to hear; to reconnect with that soap-opera back-story that is so important to this band. It’s the weakest song on Extended Play however.

But It Takes Time is gorgeous, Lindsey at the piano, deciding – essentially – that if the band is missing Christine McVie and Christine McVie Songs he’ll just write one. It Takes Time wouldn’t have been out of place on the recent return from Bill Fay. It’s my pick for winning track on EP – it’s the something special you often find on EPs.

And the closer, Miss Fantasy, is another strong pop song. Flavours of the Mac of old. Just enough to distinguish it – and the other songs here – from Lindsey’s solo career; it’s deceptively slight at first – just 17 minutes after all – but you hear the textures, that lovely feel that is signature.

Will it change the world? No. Will it keep the fans happy? Of course.

The EP is available at iTunes or you can stream it.

[elle]

http://roxboroghreport.blogspot.co.n...sic-in-10.html

Fleetwood Mac's First New Music In 10 Years - Extended Play

Fleetwood Mac are back with their first new recordings as a band for 10 years. Particularly from the thinking man's guitar hero Lindsey Buckingham, there have been plenty of solo projects in more recent years and Stevie Nicks even managed an acclaimed solo album in 2011 (In Your Dreams).

But this is the first time since the whopping 18-track album Say You Will of 2003 that Fleetwood Mac have recorded new music. At this stage it seems very much like they are testing the waters because they've only released four songs on an EP with the nice little title of Extended Play. Word is Nicks is reluctant to release a full album if it's not going to sell and that her long time sparring partner / love / muse / ex Buckingham is more keen.

So the EP is kind of a hedging of bets. If it sells then Fleetwood Mac fans can expect a new album. If it doesn't, then expect them to keep touring as a collective but to only get new releases in the form of solo projects.

I hope they do a full album and that they realize the comparatively (for them) mediocre sales of their last album shouldn't dissuade them from attempting to further their legacy, rather than just maintaining it. Say You Will had some highlights (namely Bleed To Love Her and Steal Your Heart Away), but suffered from being too long and sounding a bit like the combination of two solo albums from Buckingham and Nicks. Without Christine McVie (who retired in the late 90s to the English countryside), this is always going to be a concern.

Fleetwood Mac as they look today.

But, that doesn't mean they shouldn't try. Live, Fleetwood Mac are still just as compelling as ever and listening to these quite excellent four new songs (albeit one that's a reworking of a song from the 40 year old Buckingham / Nicks LP) makes me want to hear more.

The new songs are reminiscent of classic Fleetwood Mac in that the material is autobiographical. After all these years, there remains something very intriguing - as well as unique - about two people singing songs about each other, to each other. And while these songs are the songwriting works of Buckingham, Nicks should know that nobody produces her songs better than he can.

Here is my favourite of the new Fleetwood Mac songs, Without You.

[michelej1]

Rolling Stone
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/al...-play-20130507

By Will Hermes May 7, 2013

"We fall to Earth together/The crowd calling out for more," goes a couplet on this four-track EP by the remaining Macs (Christine McVie sits out). Note to band: That doesn't mean y'all have to answer. But if their first release of new music in a decade isn't replacing any classics, the voices of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks can still bring chills. The gem is "Without You," a breezy Nicks-written folk rocker from the couple's pre-Mac project Buckingham Nicks: Largely acoustic, with twined harmonies, its chords twist and resolve like a sun-dappled mobile on a breezy day. And we confess: Hearing the ex-lovers put words in each other's mouths remains as fascinating as ever.


Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/al...#ixzz2SacTSnFc
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

[kak125]

Fleetwood Mac Has Four New Songs Out (It’s a Secret…Shhhhh….)

Fleetwood Mac, a group I listened to with great interest in 1975, has a new album out. Or rather four songs they’ve put on iTunes. You can hear them on Soundcloud and iTunes. They released these tracks themselves, bypassing their old label Warner Bros. Records. If they used a publicist, it was probably Stealth PR, the same company that’s handling Rod Stewart. So shhh…. Maybe they’re just counting on everyone to find the songs. I really like “Sad Angel.” If radio still existed, this very nice Lindsay Buckingham song would be a hit.

http://www.showbiz411.com/2013/05/07...-secret-shhhhh

[kak125]

Last week, Fleetwood Mac released their first new recordings in almost a decade — a four-song digital EP titled Extended Play. The collection features three new tunes written by singer/guitarist Lindsey Buckingham — “It Takes Time,” “Miss Fantasy” and “Sad Angel” — as well as a Stevie Nicks-penned track called “Without You” that dates back to her and Buckingham’s pre-Fleetwood Mac days, when they performed as a duo.

Nicks recently chatted with ABC News Radio about the new songs, and revealed why the band decided to release just a few songs rather than a full-length album.

“In this day and age, nobody really wants an album anyway, [and] we didn’t have time to do a record anyway, because we were all working all last year,” she explains. “And…when you do a record, especially a Fleetwood Mac record, that means you rent a house and you’re working for almost a year. We didn’t have that year. So, this way, we have new songs.”

Nicks also told ABC News Radio that Buckingham’s new tunes were written in early 2012, and he initially recorded them with just drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie.

“I didn’t go because my mom had just passed away, and I really just couldn’t go into the studio,” she points out. “So they went in basically without me, and that was fine.”

Stevie adds that, although she didn’t participate in the early sessions, Lindsey made an effort to come up with material that was well-suited for her. “Lindsey just tried really hard to see through my eyes,” she notes. “He certainly knows me well enough to do that.”

Nicks finally got the chance to add her voice to the new tracks late last year when she visited Buckingham at his home studio. “He and I picked…two songs out of the several songs that they did that I like very much, otherwise I wouldn’t have wanted to sing on them,” explains Stevie. “We did them, and we finished all the vocals and they came out great.”

Nicks also brought in her old song “Without You,” which she reportedly had rediscovered after coming across an old demo that had been posted on YouTube.

“We can’t figure out for the life of us why it didn’t go on the Buckingham Nicks album,” says Stevie, referring to the 1973 album she and Lindsey recorded as a duo. “But it didn’t and it’s just this amazing song…So we rerecorded it and it came out great.”

Extended Play is available now at iTunes for $3.96. Fleetwood Mac has regularly been playing two songs from the EP, “Sad Angel” and “Without You” during their current North American tour, which is mapped out through a July 6 show in Sacramento, California. The band also has a European trek planned for the fall.

http://www.classichitsandoldies.com/...ame-out-great/

[michelej1]

By Roger Friedman, Showbiz 411 May 7, 2013

http://www.showbiz411.com/2013/05/07...-secret-shhhhh

Fleetwood Mac, a group I listened to with great interest in 1975, has a new album out. Or rather four songs they’ve put on iTunes. You can hear them on Soundcloud and iTunes. They released these tracks themselves, bypassing their old label Warner Bros. Records. If they used a publicist, it was probably Stealth PR, the same company that’s handling Rod Stewart. So shhh…. Maybe they’re just counting on everyone to find the songs. I really like “Sad Angel.” If radio still existed, this very nice Lindsay Buckingham song would be a hit.

[michelej1]

Consequence of Sound By Jon Hadusek on May 15th, 2013 in Album Reviews

http://consequenceofsound.net/2013/0...ended-play-ep/

Fleetwood Mac are restless. After dozens of songs, albums, tours, and RIAA certifications, you’d think they would’ve reached a point of satisfied complacency, like when a star athlete hits the twilight of his or her career and admits, “I’ve done it all it’s time to retire.” Maybe Fleetwood Mac did, in fact, reach such a point after 2003’s Say You Will. The band announced an indefinite hiatus — its members diverting their concentration to their personal lives and solo endeavors. The Mac’s future was in question…

But if Michael Jordan wearing a Washington Wizards jersey taught us anything, it’s that you can’t keep The Best at bay while they still have the ability to play … and make lots of money. So in 2009, Fleetwood Mac reunited for a tour (which — just like Jordan on the Wizards — put asses in seats and made tons o’ cash). During the tour, Lindsey Buckingham dropped this nugget: “The time is right to go back to the studio.”

But for three years that promise went unfulfilled as Fleetwood Mac rode the nostalgia train all the way to the bank. Another world tour, TV appearances, and album reissues — no new music.

Until now.

Via a surprise press release last month, Fleetwood Mac announced Extended Play, a four-song EP of new material — their first since 2003. Expectations were high for these songs, considering Buckingham’s aforementioned statements and the subsequent lack of fresh studio material from the band.

By its own nature, Extended Play can’t meet those expectations. A quick-hitting EP simply cannot contain the songwriting force that is Buckingham/Nicks/McVie. ****, Rumours could barely contain ‘em (and Tusk overdid it). Instead, we don’t get that team at all. Just Buckingham. Every song on Extended Play is sung and written by him (“Without You” is a re-recording of an old Buckingham/Nicks demo).

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, though it makes the EP feel more like a Buckingham solo project than a true Fleetwood Mac release. The songs play it safe, adhering to the midtempo rhythms that best suit his voice. Lead track “Sad Angel” opens with the familiar jangles of “Go Your Own Way” — a momentary callback before we finally hear this new, Christine McVie-less iteration of Fleetwood Mac. Buckingham’s fatalism is firmly in place: “My eyes saw the words / With a prayer and a curse / Your pain had to sleep/With a sword that it keeps.” They’re contemplative lyrics for an otherwise simple pop tune. Modern production techniques enhance Buckingham’s clean guitar tones and his vocal harmonies with Nicks. Even the compressed MP3s sound superb — magnifying every nuance, from the patter of Mick Fleetwood’s snare to the slight gravely tic in Stevie Nick’s voice (which proves that she is in fact 64, despite her age-defying looks).

The new version of “Without You” is a welcome rendition. It’s an acoustic duet between Buckingham and Nicks — the only real presence she has on Extended Play. Although it was likely written while they were madly in love with one another, the song emphatically contradicts that idea: “I’m so lonely babe/I can’t live without you.” The following track, “It Takes Time”, is a somewhat forgettable piano ballad, but Fleetwood Mac close strong with the hook-y power-pop of “Miss Fantasy”.

Extended Play is a short tease, but these tracks aren’t throwaways or an attempt at a quick cash-in. Lindsey Buckingham wouldn’t put his name on something like that. A known perfectionist, he co-produced the EP alongside Mitchell Froom, and the attention paid to detail shows. Sure, the songs don’t veer far from Fleetwood Mac’s mellow-rock wheelhouse, but why should they? Extended Play is hampered by its fleeting duration; however, for being an out-of-the-blue release that costs less than $5, Fleetwood Mac fans should be more than satisfied. Just know that you won’t be hearing much from Stevie Nicks or John McVie.

Essential Tracks: “Sad Angel”