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As anxiously awaited as any album since Dylan's, Neil Young's poetic genius pours forth on this authentic pop masterpiece of acoustic metaphors and total musicianship. On hand are Crazy Horse, Steve Stills, Greg Reeves, and Nils Lofgren on piano, but Neil Young possesses these grooves with subtle complete control. Fans will memorize "Tell Me Why," "After the Goldrush," "Oh Lonesome Me," and all the others.
- Billboard, 1970.
Bonus Reviews!
While David Crosby yowls about assasinations, Young divulges darker agonies without even bothering to make them explicit. Here the gaunt pain of Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere fills out a little -- the voice softer, the jangling guitar muted behind a piano. Young's melodies -- every one of them -- are impossible to dismiss. He can write "poetic" lyrics without falling flat on his metaphor even when the subject is ecology or crumbling empire. And despite his acoustic tenor, he rocks plenty. A real rarity: pleasant and hard at the same time. A+
- Robert Christgau, Christgau's Record Guide, 1981.
The years have only been kind to what sounded like Young's best album when it was released. It's a mixture of his folkie ("Tell Me Why"), country ("Oh, Lonesome Me"), and hard-rocking ("Southern Man") selves, and there's also that mystical title track, which remains Neil Young's definitive statement of purpose. * * * * *
- William Ruhlmann, The All-Music Guide to Rock, 1995.
After the Gold Rush is a great mix of Neil Young's two selves, with rockers such as "Southern Man" alongside ballads like "Tell Me Why," not to mention the glorious title track. * * * * *
- Alan Paul, Musichound Rock: The Essential Album Guide, 1996.
The sleeve is bleak: a solarized photograph of a rangy Neil Young passing an old woman in the street, but After The Goldrush was Young's first truly great album. The spellbinding title track mixes everything from social commentary to science fiction, yet somehow Young's plaintive vocals tie it all together. The Canadian's penchant for heartbreak is well served on the album. "Oh Lonesome Me," a cover performed as a slow, sad waltz, features a wailing harmonica and an emotional vocal. Against a slow, swaying beat, "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" contrasts childhood happiness with the pain of adult love. "Birds," with its dry-eyed lyrics and poignant vocal, is heart-wrenching, while "Don't Let It Bring You Down" is dark and majestic, a stark vignette of a harsh world. Those tracks showcase Neil Young the troubadour. With "Southern Man" we get Young the axe maniac, here is a real glimpse of the checked-shirt wearing, Crazy Horse-fronting Young of the future. The lyrics are a tirade against Southern racism. Young shrieks them out while his guitar solos are fractured, unpredictable snatches of fire. "When You Dance I Can Really Love" is a euphoric explosion of abrasive guitars, clattering drums and a pounding piano. It's a magnificent, style-setting album which saw the Canadian's elevation to rock hero. For those who like their emotion raw.
- Collins Gem Classic Albums, 1999.
The former Buffalo Springfield singer-guitarist was not fully mature, like Athena from Zeus' head, when he released his third solo effort, a folk-rock masterpiece of biting ennui that still has a sound of hope and sets the tone for greatness to come. With each song a tight well-written gem, from the introspective "I Believe in You" to the incendiary "Southern Man," neither time nor repeated listenings have dulled its impact. * * * * *
- Zagat Survey Music Guide - 1,000 Top Albums of All Time, 2003.
For his third allbum, Young fired Crazy Horse (the first of many times he would do that), picked up an acoustic guitar and headed to his basement. He installed recording equipment in the cellar of his Topanga Canyon home in Los Angeles, leaving room for only three or four people. There, Young made an album of heartbreaking ballads such as "Tell Me Why" and "Don't Let It Bring You Down." The music is gentle, which didn't mean Young wanted it smooth. Nils Lofgren, then a seventeen-year-old hotshot guitarist, squeezed into the sessions -- only to have Young assign him to the piano, an instrument he had never played in his life.
After the Gold Rush was chosen as the 71st greatest album of all time by the editors of Rolling Stone magazine in Dec. 2003.
- Rolling Stone, 12/11/03.
A starkly poignant record, After The Gold Rush contains some of Neil Young's most love-torn lyrics. The cover photograph sums up the album's sentiment -- a solarized photograph of the glowering singer-songwriter walking in a near-deserted street.
Young's latest songs -- he had, until recently, been hard at work on the Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young album, Déjà Vu -- indicate a more introspective approach. Songs like "Tell Me Why," "Only Love Can Break Your Heart," and "Don't Let It Bring You Down" all go some way to solidify his reputation as a hopeless romantic. The energy and fire of his electric guitar playing emerges only twice, notably on the corrosive (and controversial) "Southern Man."
In patenting the late night feel of the record, After The Gold Rush was recorded with Young's latest find -- a young singer-songwriter and multi-instruentalist named Nils Lofgren, whose guitar playing and piano work would elevate this collection of songs to among the finest ever written by Neil Young. The beautifully evocative title track, for instance, a near-mystical eulogy to a vanished and fast vanishing America, has now become a cornerstone of Young's live set.
The record would pave the way, two years later, for Harvest, regarded by many as one of the most influential country-rock albums ever produced. Until then, though, After The Gold Rush, an altogether more sanguine collection of songs, would remain the highpoint of Young's career.
- Burhan Wazir, 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, 2005.
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