AMG Review of Mother Lode

William Ruhlmann
All Music Guide

From its brown-toned cover to its contents, Loggins & Messina's fourth studio album is a sober, low-key, reflective affair. The band's music, with its single flute, violin, and horn lines, directed by Messina's intricate guitar and mandolin playing, serves a series of mid-tempo tunes expressing a lot of quiet dissatisfaction signalled by titles like "Be Free," "Changes," and "Move On." As usual in a Jim Messina production, all of this is elegantly, tastefully accomplished, but one could hardly come away from the record feeling that all was well in the L&M camp.