Heroes Are Hard To Find

Heroes are hard to find was their ninth studio album and was released in September 1974. The band are now back to a four-piece with Bob Welch, Christine McVie, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood, and the burden firmly fell on Bob's shoulders here as he composed and performed seven of the eleven tracks, Christine contributed the remaining four.

Maybe it was down to this reason why Bob left the band in December of that year after suffering with exhaustion, although every cloud has a silver lining and on the next album we were to be treated with the first sounds of 'new' Mac as Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham were recruited to take the band forward.

I don't want to get too carried away with the next album yet though as I don't want it to take any of the focus away from this one, which is a lot different in sound from anything that came before or after it. The first track is called Heroes are hard to find and is one of Christine McVie's efforts. It's an upbeat, catchy, poppy track which is a great start to the album - it was also released as a single but I'm surprised they hadn't given up with those by this stage as it didn't exactly set the charts on fire.

The next three are credited to Bob Welch, with the largely instrumental track Coming home next, which is a spacey, hypnotic sounding track and one which takes a couple of listens to get into. Angel is better, it's still quite trancey but a lot rockier and easier to get into. Then we have Bermuda triangle, following Bob's new found love of the unknown (which might account for the spacey feel of his tracks on this album) this is somewhere between the last two tracks in terms of that space vibe sound and is quite a good effort.

Christine brings things back to Earth with the gorgeous Come a little bit closer, one of her best tracks ever I'd say and proving why she's a worthy link between this Fleetwood Mac and the one on the next album and beyond, which people are always saying is a completely different band. For those people I would say that this, and a lot of her others from earlier albums, would sit nicely on any of the next few albums.

There's another beauty next in the shape of She's changing me, a Bob Welch number that caught my ear on the first listen. Here he manages to mix his experimental rock style with a country edge and makes for an instantly catchy song. Christine goes the other way on Bad loser, and has obviously been affected by some of Bob's hypnotic vibes as this sounds like it should be one of his. It's still a worthy song though and bridges the gap between the two vocalists sounds on this album.

Probably the most infectious, upbeat, catchy track on this album is Silver heels, on which Welch mentions Paul McCartney and Etta James in the lyrics. This would have been a massive hit if they had been more well known at that point and is another of those lost treasures that we are going to need a large chest to store them all in soon.

Christine gives her final performance on the album with another belter called Prove your love. This is summery with a positive feel, but yet strangely trancey. It's definitely thumbs up for this one though. Not so for Born enchanter, another eerie hypnotic Bob Welch track which isn't one of his most memorable, and the same can be said of the album closer, Safe harbour, which is a haunting instrumental, but for a few lyrics at the end. Maybe those last two tracks need more listens but they didn't really grab me after a couple.

A difficult album to sum up really. Christine is the bridge between this and the next album and delivers a couple of her best tracks to date, while Bob has gained an obsession for things strange and takes the sound into a futuristic phase, which works on some tracks more than others. There are some definite gems to be found on here though, although on the final track I'm thinking that Stevie arrived in the Nick of time.