Fleetwood Mac - Kiln House

If Kiln House is short on the pop gems that stud Rumours andFleetwood Mac, it’s light years away from the band’s blues origins as well. The truth is Kiln House is all over the place. Just check out the guitar heroics on such great tunes as “Tell Me All the Things You Do” and “Station Man.” And from there Mick and Company veer crazily from old school rock’n’rollers (a kick-ass cover of Fats Waller’s “Hi Ho Silver”) to country parody (the hilarious “Blood on the Floor”) to rockabilly tributes (a wacky cover of “Buddy’s Song,” which is credited to Buddy Holly’s mom, and “This Is a Rock,” which lopes and shuffles along at a lackadaisical but irresistible pace, putting anything ever recorded by the Stray Cats to shame).

 And if that’s not enough variety for one LP, Kiln House also offers up the relatively mellow instrumental “Earl Gray,” the mellow and country-tinged “One Together,” and a Jefferson Airplane-meets-Buddy Holly cover of Jesse D. Hodge’s “Mission Bell” that comes at you like a knuckleball, but somehow reaches the catcher’s mitt as a strike. As for “Jewel-Eyed Judy,” it boasts some very laid-back verses juxtaposed between crashing choruses, and is chiefly noteworthy for totally flopping when released as a single.