This album, from September 1969, the last to feature Peter Green and barely featuring Jeremy Spencer saw Fleetwood Mac shift direction away from searing, guitar-driven, gritty blues to a slightly more psychedelic, laid-back, hippy style.
The blues is still there in a lot of the guitar sound, but there is definitely far more of a hippy dreaminess to the group's sound now. It is the beginning of the more gentle rock sound that featured on the series of albums that would take the band up to their huge sea change in 1975.
The sound on the album is ok, but it is not quite as good as on the previous albums. It could probably due with losing a couple of tracks as it is a bit sprawling, but that is nit-picking, really. The cover also gives a clue as to the future direction, as it has gone very proggy. Two Danny Kirwan tracks from the English Rose album from earlier in the year appear again - One Sunny Day and Without You.
Coming Your Way is a rhythmic, percussion-driven serving of laid-back bluesy hippiness. Closing My Eyes is a sleepy, slightly proggy ballad. It features a nice Spanish guitar part in the middle. Fighting For Madge is a riffy, upbeat instrumental. When You Say is a bit of a dirge-like ballad with a clumsy "la-la-la" chorus. The blues are back on the lively slide guitar-driven stomp of Showbiz Blues.
Underway, an instrumental, is a nice, understated, bassy sort of speeded-up Albatross and Although The Sun Is Shining is an ethereal, dreamy acoustic ballad, nothing like anything the group had done previously. Rattlesnake Shake is the album's most authentic grinding blues rock number and it is no surprise that it was a Peter Green track, his last great bluesy contribution to the group. It is a fine slice of blues rock and is probably the album's best cut.
Searching For Madge is a good one too - over six minutes of rocking blues jamming of the sort that appeared on the group's Live Blues Jam In Chicago albums. The band get into a live-sounding bass and drum groove and simply keep it up, despite a brief pause a couple of minutes in. Mick Fleetwood's drum solo, however "seventies" it may undoubtedly be, displays his innate rhythmic ability. It is very Ginger Baker-ish. My Dream is a gentle, melodic, light guitar instrumental. Like Crying is a blues, but a folky one.
The final track, Before The Beginning, perhaps appropriately, is a Peter Green one, and is a slow, brooding number with an Albatross-style backing. Overall, the album is a bit of a transitional one. I prefer the bluesy urgency of the earlier ones, and the improved sound and melody of those that were to come.
