Fleetwood Mac release 'Extended Play' EP, first new music in 10 years

How did a group of sexagenarians sneak up on us like this?

Though they’ve been promising this release for weeks, Fleetwood Mac finally unleashed their Extended Play EP on iTunes this morning. The band, which is currently on tour (they’ll be rocking the Sprint Center in Kansas City tonight), has been playing new tunes on stage since they kicked off, and frontman Lindsey Buckingham has been promising the release of Extended Play for several weeks.

The four songs on Extended Play represent the first newly recorded Fleetwood Mac tracks since their 2003 album Say You Will, which went gold. The highlight is “Without You,” which features a confidently strummed folk-rock stomp and some top-shelf vocal interplay between Buckingham and Nicks. If it sounds like classic Mac, that’s because it is: “Without You” was originally written by Nicks over 40 years ago and was intended as a contribution to their pre-Fleetwood combo Buckingham Nicks.

Buckingham and Nicks co-produced “Without You,” while the rest of the EP was produced by Mitchell Froom, who has previously worked with Sheryl Crow, Elvis Costello, Los Lobos, and Paul McCartney.

Check out the band playing “Without You” during a performance at New York’s Madison Square Garden earlier this month.

The rest of the EP features the piano ballad “It Takes Time,” the propulsive “Sad Angel,” and the easy-grooving Miss Fantasy.

What do you think of the new Fleetwood Mac EP? How does it stack up to the band’s classic work, or even to Say You Will? Let us know in the comments.

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