Album Review: Lindsey Buckingham/Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham & Christine McVie

The story goes that, Stevie Nicks spent a grand total of just two weeks working on Fleetwood Mac’s 1987 blockbuster Tango In The Night, an album that took 18 months to complete, leaving Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie to do the heavy lifting. This record, which also features Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, mines a similar seam, and could be seen as a follow up. If you liked Tango, and millions did, then this is for you.
It’s an even split between the two names over the door. McVie delivers perfect pop on ‘Feel About You’ and ‘Red Sun’, and her beautiful, piano-led ‘Game Of Pretend’ could pass for a Rumours outtake. Buckingham, a producer of such skill he could probably put a pleasing sheen on Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music, offers the instantly familiar likes of ‘In My World’ (spot the vocal trick from ‘Big Love’), ‘Love Is Here To Stay’, and ‘Lay Down For Free’, which could also be a long lost slice of prime ’70s Mac.
Nicks’ airy-fairy-gypsy shtick is missing, but if it waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck. This is a Fleetwood Mac album in all but name. A bit of Tusk grit would have been welcome, but this is bright and shiny adult pop from start to finish. If they had released this in 1989, it would have been absolutely massive.

7/10
Out June 9.