LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM

Seeds We Sow

[Buckingham]

Lindsey Buckingham’s music is annoyed by your vibrating phone. It is openly contemptuous of your shuffle mode. It spits at your Spotify. It stands uncomfortably close to you, demanding that you look it in the eye and pay attention. And if you’re willing to do that, you two will get along just fine. You can go ahead and prefer his classic Fleetwood Mac guitar tone over the style he employs on Seeds We Sow; the frenzied right-hand rolls here often sound like an electrified banjo mated with a classical harp. But asking Buckingham to replicate the past is a fool’s errand—he’s interested in the moment, not a memory. Seeds is filled with contemporary images of war, conflict and aggression, as suggested by titles such as “Gone Too Far,” “In Our Own Time” and “End of Time.” The album ends with tenderness, though, via a lovely acoustic cover of the Rolling Stones’ “She Smiled Sweetly.” –Peter Cooper