Bare Trees - FLEETWOOD MAC***

Child Of Mine/The Ghost/Homeward Bound/Sunny Side Of Heaven/Bare Trees/Sentimental Lady/Danny's Chant/ Spare Me A Little Of Your Love/Dust/Thoughts On A Grey Day

Bare Trees was the final Fleetwood Mac album to feature guitarist Danny Kirwan who contributes most of the songs here. The band continue their move away from blues-rock into soft-rock. (US:70)

”This album really matches its contents with the picture on the cover, with shows a grey, rather dreary English Winter day, and is perfect for listening on such a day. Not that the music is dreary as it works like wrapping a quilt around yourself and relaxing in your favourite chair.”

“Although Bare Trees is more pop rock oriented than the previous Future Games, Fleetwood Mac are still searching for an identity. This will be the last album to feature guitarist Danny Kirwan and the group certainly uses the most of his talents here. He is the predominant songwriter and splits the guitar duties with Bob Welch. Unlike Future Games however, most of Kirwan's tracks here fail to impress, perhaps due to the evolving pop influence that has permeated the group.”

“The Bob Welch/Danny Kirwan incarnation of Fleetwood Mac is my least favourite compared against the blues rock of Peter Green and pop genius of Buckingham and Nicks. I find many of the tracks here bland across the board. The style is a cross between the two incarnations of the band that surrounded this one. Welch and Kirwan appear to being doing a poor man's Peter Green impersonation, with Christine McVie continuing her seeming quest to craft a pop ballad.”

“Bare Trees is a soft-rock album by a band that was by then gradually gaining more distance from their earlier harder sound, and while they're found lacking in places it's a solid enough release. Not terribly exciting perhaps, and certainly it doesn't live up to the cover, but it does strongly suggest that the post Peter Green, pre Buckingham/Nicks line-up deserves more recognition than they get.”

“Fans of the Buckingham-Nicks era of Fleetwood Mac will probably enjoy this album as it occupies a good middle-ground between the two well-known periods of the band. Danny Kirwan’s stint in the Mac is over but he leaves us a wealth of great, unappreciated material and Bare Trees is a fitting epitaph to his time with the band.”