On Mother Lode, the taste and imaginativeness that marked Loggins and Messina’s satisfying first album, Sittin’ In, have been partially restored.
While it’s true that neither Loggins nor Messina has yet managed to express himself in song or singing with any sizeable intensity, the two here at least have the sense to stay unobtrusively melodic through their up-front segments.
These actually just serve as interludes joining the pieces of what is clearly this album’s meat: the instrumental music of an engagingly sophisticated band.
A Messina tune with the dubious-sounding title of ˝Be Free˝ contains the record’s most exciting section, a vibrant, cascading passage -- built around Messina’s insinuating bouzouki-like mandolin work -- that’s a good deal more eloquent than the sum total of the platitudes that litter the lyrics of both writers.