Uncut mag review of Say You Will

[Gypsy-Rhiannon]

Return of the Mac
Tasty box of All-Sorts from mainstream monsters of yesteryear

Fleetwood Mac
Say You Will
* * * *

More than most bands, FLEETWOOD MAC evince
complex, unresolved feelings. On the one hand
they're the ultimate mainstream soft rock dinosaur,
past masters of glossy emotions and overcooked
arrangements. On the other hand......
On the other hand what, exactly? It's not like
Fleetwood Mac are Abba - So Uncool They're Cool.
But nor have Fleetwood Mac ever been So Cool They're
Uncool...if you know what I mean. So what are they,
and why does a goodly percentage of their music stand
up after decades? I guess because a) witchy woman
Stevie Nicks has the voice of a petulant siren: b) studio
geek Lindsey Buckingham still wants to be Brian
Wilson: and c) Fleetwood Mac were and are truly a
band for boys and girls. Good things all.
So here they come again, in a post-post-punk, hip
hop-dominated universe, keen to make meaningful
music. And there's a historical parallel here: just as
1979's 'brave, of-the-wall' double album Tusk
followed 1977's stratosphere-busting Rumours, so the
almost-double cd Say You Will follows the play-safe
'live greatest hits' thing that was 1997's The Dance.
The funny thing is that Tusk, when you revisit it,
doesn't sound off the wall at all. Which makes Say You Will
all the more out-there as mainstream rock product. Next
to Tusk, indeed, this 18-track opus is a box of All-Sorts
replete with countless different colours and moods.
As one would expect, there's a slew of those Stevie
Nicks songs that are essentially narcissistic hymns to,
well, Stevie Nicks. One of them is called "Silver Girl", no
less. Another "Illume", is a bongo-driven meditation on
life post 9/11 and boasts the priceless line, "I am a cliff
dweller from the old school". Gotta love the woman: on
the closing "Goodbye Baby" she sounds like Kate Bush
spliced with Victoria Williams
Then there are Lindsey's songs, some of which date
back to the solo 'project' that should have come out
after his 1992 opus Out Of The Cradle. What makes Say
You Will really great are Lindsey tracks like "Red Rover",
"Come" and "Say Goodbye". The heady melodicism and
hyper-syncopation of "Rover" are intoxicating. The
shimmering "Say Goodbye" - all dappled guitars and
whispered vocals - suggests Lindsey has been listening
to modern-day troubadours like Elliot Smith.
The album peaks somewhere in the middle, with
"Rover" followed by the effortlessly shiny Steviepop of
the title track and then by first single "Peacekeeper", a
true Buck/Nicks joint effort. Both pack killer choruses,
as insidiously sweet-sad as vintage Mac classics from
"Silver Springs" to "Gypsy". Nicks "Running Through
The Garden" is early-80's hippie power pop, with a
layered keyboard hook and chugging noo wave guitar.
For the obvious reasons the only flavour missing on Say
You Will is the departed Christine's perfect Tango in The
Night bop-pop, making the album more Buckingham-
Nicks Redux than anything else. (You can hear Chrissie,
though, on the moody, thumping "Murrow".) That's OK,
because there's so much here to get one's teeth into.
Tusk this isn't, but Tusk it doesn't need to be. In an
age of off-the-shelf Linda Perry pop, the Mac keep the
mainstream interesting. Say you'll give it a spin.