★★★★★
In hindsight, it's really a miracle that Rumours didn't completely sink. You have two couples who are struggling with internal conflicts - John and Christine McVie had recently divorced, while Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks (who were only in the group for a few years by that point) were in an on/off relationship of their own - plus drummer Mick Fleetwood's then-wife Jenny having an affair behind his back...
- www.sputnikmusic.com
2014-04-25
★★★★★
Though large portions of this 3CD collection, recorded over three nights in September 1970 at the Boston Tea Party, have been available for ages in official and more dubious formats, this weirdly packaged artefact provides the best-sounding example of the Peter Green, Danny Kirwan, Jeremy Spencer, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie era. In fact, it's so good you almost feel like you've taken a tab and been whisked back in time.
- recordcollectormag.com
2014-01-02
★★★★★
If you were to ask most of the fans that paid a bundle to see Fleetwood Mac this year who Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer and Danny Kirwan were, then you might just get a lot of blank stares in return--even today, the pre-Stevie Nicks incarnations of the venerable British-born institution remain largely unknown to way too many...
- www.jambands.com
2013-11-11
★★★★★
If you were to ask most of the fans that paid a bundle to see Fleetwood Mac this year who Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer and Danny Kirwan were, then you might just get a lot of blank stares in return--even today, the pre-Stevie Nicks incarnations of the venerable British-born institution remain largely unknown to way too many...
- www.relix.com
2013-10-29
★★★★★
After reissuing Rumours earlier this year, Rhino decided to turn its sights on lesser-known Fleetwood Mac albums (or, in sadder but truer words, any Fleetwood Mac album not named Rumours). The eponymous album that preceded Rumours, and Tusk, the sprawling double album that followed it, seem like more logical choices than Then Play On, an album that barely sounds like Fleetwood Mac to the people who are only familiar with them through radio play...
- www.popmatters.com
2013-10-18
★★★★★
Fleetwood Mac, as has oftenbeen remarked, are a funnyold band. More accurately,they are a bunch of funny oldbands, and Then Play On isthe final page of theiropening chapter.
- recordcollectormag.com
2013-09-12
★★★★★
"We fall to Earth together/The crowd calling out for more," goes a couplet on this four-track EP by the remaining Macs (Christine McVie sits out). Note to band: That doesn't mean y'all have to answer. But if their first release of new music in a decade isn't replacing any classics, the voices of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks can still bring chills...
- www.rollingstone.com
2013-05-07
★★★★★
Acrimony stained "The Chain" with its terse "If you don't love me now, you will never love me again..." accusation and Nicks' "I Don't Wanna Know" was denial aggressively plead for. Buckingham got dismissively vitrolic as "Go Your Own Way" splattered he said/she saids everywhere, then drew the line on the acoustic guitar-staccato-noted "Never Going Back Back Again." Still there was hope among the ruins...
- www.americansongwriter.com
2013-04-25