Gift of Screws Reviews

[vivfox]

Gift of Screws dusted off with new offerings
Posted By DAVID REED

Lindsey Buckingham -- Gift of Screws (Reprise Records, 2008)

As a creative and innovative musical force in Fleetwood Mac since 1975, Lindsey Buckingham has written and performed countless classic songs, including "Second Hand News," "Never Going Back Again" and "Go Your Own Way."

Gift of Screws is Buckingham's fifth solo release, but another solo album of the same title was set for release in 2001. Reprise Records convinced Buckingham to hold back that album and use some of the songs on forthcoming Fleetwood Mac recordings. "Bleed to Love Her" and a handful of other tracks appeared on The Dance and Say You Will. A number of bootlegs of the 2001 Gift of Screws are floating around on the Internet, having been leaked somehow.

The 2008 release titled Gift of Screws features a few of the original songs including the visceral title track (named after an Emily Dickinson poem). All of the material has been newly recorded. The title track and the swampy "Wait For You" both feature the unmistakable sound of Mick Fleetwood on drums and Fleetwood Mac bassist John McVie.

"Great Day" is the utterly compelling opening track, with clipped percussion and other bleeps and blips beneath rippling guitar lines.

"Time Precious Time" and "Bel Air Rain" have ghostly vocals floating amidst layers of shimmering guitars awash with delays and reverbs.

Other highlights include "Did You Miss Me," "The Right Place to Fade," "Treason" and "Love Runs Deeper."

Unlike many guitarists, Buckingham does not use a guitar pick but rather plays fingerstyle. The resulting waves and arpeggios seem to envelop some of the songs with an unfamiliar and truly unique sound.

Gift of Screws is a thought-provoking and sonically-unique album that deserves serious attention.

http://www.intelligencer.ca/ArticleD...aspx?e=1221902

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by vivfox

Watching Buckingham perform solo is impressive, especially his rendition of Fleetwood Mac’s Big Love from the Seven Wonders album.

But at least this guy seems to be just a layman blogger. When professional journalists do this type of thing -- and they do it all the time -- I think they should be fired. It's the height of laziness. Michele

[michelej1]

Leader Post, Canada

http://www.canada.com/reginaleaderpo...4-38749a79679d

GIFT OF SCREWS

Lindsey Buckingham

Reprise Records

3 (out of five)

Whether you view Lindsey Buckingham as a crusty weirdo or pop music genius, you might certainly be interested in what he's up to. The cool thing is that experimentation is Buckingham's specialty. The other cool thing is that Buckingham won't let the shackles of industry-imposed demands affect him.

There is some flamenco, some art-pop, some speedy acoustic jazz with some eerie sounds and challenging vocals, making Gift of Screws a nifty collection if for no other reason than Buckingham's earnest approach. These songs are spirited, and left to flow like they were meant to reflect an unedited version of what the former Fleetwood Macker had on his mind at the time.

It's also a little self indulgent -- and that makes it satisfying for the listener. -- Andrew Matte

[vivfox]

New Albums
September 28, 2008

LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM "Gift of Screws" (Reprise)

A decade ago, "Gift of Screws" was going to be Lindsey Buckingham's fourth solo album, but a Fleetwood Mac reunion got in the way, and many of those songs ended up on Mac's "Say You Will" in 2003. Now Buckingham has resurrected the title for his fifth solo work, the successor to 2006's "Under the Skin."

Mac fans will be pleased to hear Mick Fleetwood and John McVie join Buckingham on several tracks, including the bluesy stomp "Wait For You" and the unhinged garage-rock romp of the title track. And elsewhere, Buckingham resurrects the percussive experimentalism of "Tusk" ("Great Day") and demonstrates his prowess at writing sunny and instantly catchy pop melodies ("Did You Miss Me").

Sometimes his studio wizardry and guitar skills — Buckingham is an underrated guitar hero — get the best of him: "Time Precious Time" and a few others impress mostly as technical achievements. But they still impress.

http://www.dailypress.com/features/d...,5953429.story

[Madness Fades]

Originally Posted by michelej1

But at least this guy seems to be just a layman blogger. When professional journalists do this type of thing -- and they do it all the time -- I think they should be fired. It's the height of laziness. Michele

I like what you have said here. I think I know what you mean.

[michelej1]

Buffalo News, 9-28-08

http://www.buffalonews.com/entertain...ry/449843.html

Lindsey Buckingham, “Gift of Screws” (Reprise). Brian Wilson isn’t the only Californian pop auteur who’s routinely flirted with pure genius for decades. OK, so Fleetwood Mac will never be held in the same near-reverential high esteem as the man who made us “Smile.” But since he joined that former hard-blues outfit in the mid-’70s, Buckingham created what begs to be called “chamber pop” on a level rivaling Wilson’s work. “Rumors” made him rich, but the Mac’s “Tusk” was his masterwork. And it’s with his solo work that Buckingam lavishes us with idiosyncratic brilliance most abundantly. The man can write a pop hook to die for, but it’s what he wraps those hooks in — weird and wonderful layers of acoustic and electric guitars, played with his inimitable finger-picking technique; warm and lush reverb billowing within and around the yearning-infused vocal tracks — that makes Buckingham unique. “Gift of Screws” is the man’s finest work since his early ’90s masterpiece “Out of the Cradle,” and like that album, this one runs the gamut from the wacky but familiar opus to the instantly lovable straight pop ditty . Throughout, the guitar playing is close to peerless. ★★★★ (J. M.)

[michelej1]

Sunday Business Post (Ireland), 9-28-08

http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/st...142-qqqx=1.asp

Lindsey Buckingham: Gift Of Screws (Reprise)
Whenever Fleetwood Mac go on one of their periodic hiatuses, Lindsey Buckingham fills the time by cranking out another intricate, intriguing solo album. Buckingham’s songs aren’t so much stand-alone tunes as weirdly-contoured aural objects, and he seems to save his most angular ones for his solo work.

Great Day consists solely of dextrous acoustic guitar shadowed by a skeletal backbeat, as if he forgot to include the rest of the instruments, while Wait For You sounds like a modernist take on what Steve Earle was knocking out in the late 1980s.

Buckingham sometimes overdoes it on the fretwork front (though who can blame him, given how gifted a guitarist he is): Time Precious Time, a display of dazzling acoustic playing in search of a song, is beautiful, yet strangely empty. But when he gets it right, the results are excellent –check out the breathtaking Bel Air Rain, where he marries the same virtuosity to a killer melody.

**** J O’B

[michelej1]

Chicago Tribune, 9-28-08

http://www.chicagotribune.com/featur...,5230266.story

A decade ago, "Gift of Screws" was going to be Lindsey Buckingham's fourth solo album, but a Fleetwood Mac reunion got in the way, and many of those songs ended up on Mac's "Say You Will" in 2003. Now Buckingham has resurrected the title for his fifth solo work, the successor to 2006's "Under the Skin."

Mac fans will be pleased to hear Mick Fleetwood and John McVie join Buckingham on several tracks, including the bluesy stomp "Wait For You" and the unhinged garage-rock romp of the title track. And elsewhere, Buckingham resurrects the percussive experimentalism of "Tusk" ("Great Day") and demonstrates his prowess at writing sunny and instantly catchy pop melodies ("Did You Miss Me").

Sometimes his studio wizardry and guitar skills — Buckingham is an underrated guitar hero — get the best of him: "Time Precious Time" and a few others impress mostly as technical achievements. But they still impress.

— Steve Klinge

[michelej1]

[Hey! "Genius" is not too strong of a word, buddy]

Torrance Daily Breeze, 9-27-08

http://www.dailybreeze.com/ci_10578595

"GIFT OF SCREWS" REPRISE 1/2

Genius may be too strong a word for former Fleetwood Mac visionary Lindsey Buckingham. Let's just say he hears sounds and patterns in his head that not everyone does. He begins "Gift of Screws," only his fifth solo album since 1981, by immediately indulging in this penchant for unusual rhythmic sequences. No matter how disparate any given song's parts might seem - in this case, the piercing guitar rips, choppy percussion and echo-heavy vocals on the opening "Great Day" - Buckingham never fails to draw them together into coherent and memorable wholes. "Time Precious Time" has what sounds like five or six speedily plucked and hammered acoustic guitars, and very little else, to carry it. One listens and waits for it all to fall apart, only to find that its strange beauty increases as the track progresses. More conventional songs follow. "The Right Place to Fade" hews closest to the Fleetwood Mac party line, in a good way: Infectious melody, lively vocals and rippling guitars are driven by Mac founder Mick Fleetwood's trademark drumming. "Love Runs Deeper" couches its stomping chorus in a wall of acoustic guitars and layered vocals before concluding with a brilliant, soaring guitar solo. "Treason" caps the album with a stately beauty that's almost startling, its dreamlike chorus lingering well after the song ends. It may take repeated listens to hear just how well "Gift of Screws" fits together, but it's well worth the effort.

[michelej1]

Houston Press, 10-2-08

http://www.houstonpress.com/2008-10-...ift-of-screws/

In the fastest turnaround of Fleetwood Mac singer/guitarist/producer Lindsey Buckingham's career, Gift of Screws comes two years after his previous solo LP, Under the Skin. For the first couple of tracks, we want to stamp it "return to sender." "Great Day" boasts guitar ripples we first heard on his disembowelment of "Big Love" from Fleetwood Mac's live set The Dance, coupled with lyrics best described as verbal tags rather than coherent statements. A couple of songs exist as mere instrumentals: "Bel Air Rain" is Ottmar Liebert on Vivarin. "Did You Miss Me" comes closest to unearthing the romantic wanderlust that's been Buckingham's trademark since 1975's "Monday Morning," but as indelible as the chorus melody is, he could be directing his plaint to a mirror — or, heartbreakingly, Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie, whose harmonies would've reminded him (and us) of what he's missing. The feisty title track, replete with look-at-me-now axemanship and oddball vocal effects, feels anchored to a recognizable eccentricity; it's no surprise that Mick Fleetwood and John McVie constitute its rhythm section. Alas, "Trouble" and National Lampoon's Vacation one-off "Holiday Road" excepted, not a single track in Buckingham's solo period rivals Mac's "Go Your Own Way" for precision; he's a human being with conflicts, lusts and such only when he's allowed to express them around and to other people. Here, "Underground" acknowledges the dilemma: "Say what you mean, but please don't mean a thing" is not just a curt description of the Buckingham Problem, but a beautifully sung line from an artist capable of transcending limitations, yet content to bask in lapidary gestures. When Buckingham goes his own way, he wants it both ways — and goes nowhere at all.

[michelej1]

Albany Times Union, 9-30-08

http://blogs.timesunion.com/jericsmith/?p=250

Lindsey Buckingham’s new disc, Gift of Screws, is also masterful, which is pleasantly surprising, since I couldn’t stand his last disc, Under the Skin. He is such an amazing guitar player, and this album showcases that talent in both acoustic and electric settings. You can hear traces of his old band, Fleetwood Mac, throughout the disc, but they’re the better traces from older days, and not the more recent ones that involved Stevie Nicks croaking like a bullfrog on top of otherwise good material.

[michelej1]

Milwaukee Shepherd Express

http://www.expressmilwaukee.com/arti...milwaukee.html

Lindsey Buckingham @ Pabst Theater, 8 p.m. Pigeonholed by his ties to iconic soft-rockers Fleetwood Mac, even though he contributed some of the group's more nuanced and most celebrated songs, Lindsey Buckingham finally scored the critical reappraisal he so obviously longed for with his 2006 album Under the Skin, a stripped-down singer-songwriter disc that contained some of his best songs in a decade. Buckingham has walked with an extra pep in his step ever since, taking advantage of his renewed critical standing with a rush-released live album and, last month, a quick studio follow-up, Gift of Screws. Screws rocks a little harder than its tempered predecessor, but its songs are every bit as effortless and assured.

[michelej1]

[Oh-oh, I don't want Lindsey stealing from Don Henley! Say it ain't so.]

Now Toronto Magazine (Canada)

http://www.nowtoronto.com/music/disc...content=165155

LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM: Gift Of Screws (Reprise)

Jordan Bimm

The title comes from an Emily Dickinson poem – it’s not about Fleetwood Mac groupies. Gift proves that Lindsey Buckingham’s knack for writing catchy pop-rock chord changes is alive and well.

Buckingham’s furious fingerpicking guitar style is front and centre on the sweet Bel Air Rain, and opener Great Day would be a great song if it weren’t a total knock-off of Don Henley’s Boys Of Summer. Despite a few weak moments like the country-tinged title track and the experimental Time Precious Time, this is a solid offering for Fleetwood completists and dinosaur dad-rockers.
Lindsey Buckingham hits the Music Hall Wednesday (October 8).

[slowdancer]

Not sure if any one posted this from The BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/release/p4n8/

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by slowdancer

Not sure if any one posted this from The BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/release/p4n8/

No, I hadn't seen that one yet. Thanks for posting.

by Chris Jones, 12 September 2008

Lindsey Buckingham, chiselled, unsmiling guitarist with Fleetwood Mac, first began recording Gift Of Screws between 1995 and 2001. In the intervening period nearly half the songs recorded were hijacked for the reunion album by the band, Say You Will, as well as various other projects including his own acoustic album, Under The Skin (2006). Luckily Mr B is a very talented man, and despite what may have seemed the cream of the crop being diverted for the greater good, the remaining ten songs are pure gold dust. This album is a gift indeed.

The title comes from an Emily Dickinson poem. The bulk of the material is self-played and self-produced (with two songs co-written with wife Kristen and one with son, Will). Oh, and on another three songs some blokes called McVie and Fleetwood turn up to provide the rhythm tracks. It's on one of these (The Right Place To Fade) that Buckingham approaches the classic sound of the Mac, but elsewhere he's his own man and the results are revelatory.

Most know the stories of Buckingham's love of new wave bands that seemed at odds with the West Coast fare that his band epitomised. And indeed, Gift Of Screws approaches the avant garde in places. The opener, Great Day is quite some statement of intent. Fuelled by furiously plucked nylon strings it's a fever pitch dash through whispered vocals and an incendiary guitar solo. Next up, Time Precious Time is no less startling. Over massed strings he intones like some alt folk hero a third of his age. From here it's a brief (just over 39 minute) ride through pure Californian pop (Did You Miss Me, Love Runs Deeper) gonzo rock (Gift Of Screws), alien folk (Bel Air Rain) and so much more.

His voice is lithe, his fingers insanely nimble and his songwriting chops simply awesome. Really, anyone from the ages of 15 to 65 would find Gift Of Screws exhilarating. Quite simply, a masterpiece.