OUT NOW: Lindsey Buckingham, LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM

Lindsey Buckingham is pulling no punches. The artist forever associated with Fleetwood Mac has returned with his new self-titled album, and with what feels like a freshly focused sense of purpose. It's a record Buckingham revealed was at the heart of him being ousted from FM when he asked the group for three months away from the fold to promote it.

"I'll tell you what: Between the Fleetwood Mac stuff and the heart attack, it's all been humbling," Buckingham told the L.A. Times about the drama of the past few years. "I've never suffered from a lack of confidence, and sometimes could get carried away with that in the process of leading the band. But everything has pulled me in a little bit. I'm not as aggressive a person as I was before, which is probably not a bad thing. It made me look around more -- and become less self-involved, hopefully."

Buckingham's new album is a triumph that bears out the record's difficult gestation: "That was part of the appeal of Rumours," he theorized. "I think there's a little element of that out there right now. It's sort of humanizing. The fact that I got [this album] out at all finally is sort of a nice thing for people to think, 'Oh, cool, he's still doing it.'" Listen to Lindsey Buckingham below.