Time ()

So the tradition is that Fleetwood Mac loses band members, then replaces them and goes on. This time the "lost" members were Stevie Nicks and Rick Vito, who had been working together in the much stronger album Behind The Mask, and they were sort of 'replaced' by singer Bekka Bramlett and guitarist/vocalist Dave Mason, formerly of Traffic.

The results are better than expected, but still don't come to the levels of excellence that previous albums have reached. Mostly because of the quality of the songs. Burnette contributes probably the best track ("Talkin' To My Heart") and a filler ("I Got It In For You"), both adorned with precious Bramlett's backing vocals. Then you have sort of a mix of three or four solo albums (i.e. with not that much "band interaction") with a couple of good tunes, and with Christine McVie dominating the record with 5 songs. "Sooner Or Later" is a magical, bluesy track; "All Over Again" is a fantastic way to 'say goodbye' to the band (she left after the release of this album); "I Do" had the potential to be a big hit -it wasn't-; and "Hollywood (Some Other Kind Of Town)" and "Nights In Estoril" are a couple of her most auto-biographic and interesting songs. You don't hear much of the rest of the band in these tracks, mostly because their contributions were recorded previously... Dave Mason contributes the rocky "Blow By Blow" and "I Wonder Why", not especially notable. Bekka sings "Winds Of Change" and "Nothing Without You", but her best performance is with no doubts her precious collaboration with Billy Burnette, "Dreamin' The Dream". And then there's the atrocity of Mick doing 'vocals' in a weird and unneeded 'tribute' to Peter Green called "These Strange Times".

This album is not as bad as you may have heard. It has a couple of excellent songs, some good harmonies, nice drum/bass/guitar melodies and harmonies. Perhaps it needed more attention... and much more promotion mistakes were made. This Fleetwood Mac incarnation had probably much more to say, but their words were cut when it was disbanded, to make room for the Rumours lineup to reunite in 1997... for better or worse.