CROSBY, STILLS & NASH - After The Storm

ATLANTIC 82654

Author: Mat Snow
Journal: Q Magazine
Date: 1994

Marking the quarter-century since Woodstock - their second only gig - CSN play it again and, at this propitious moment, release their first album in four years. Crosby writes three songs to the others' four each; a campfire hug-along of The Beatles 'In My Life' makes up the dozen. British producer Glyn Johns produces and his son Ethan is among the heavyweight sidemen who tick over the CSN trademark, harmony keening.

Individually, however, time is telling: if Graham Nash can no longer over-sugar the vocal pill, neither does Stephen Stills command the gritty authority of yore. Yet his guitar still eloquently stings, combining with a brooding Hammond B-3 organ for a mood of angry resignation to middle-age and the worsening times.

Far from being the survivor self-congratulation one might expect, the significantly titled After The Storm blends personal pondering (Unequal Love) with the post LA-riot address-the-issues It Won't Go Away and Bad Boyz.

A dignified, if unspectacular contribution to the too-pooped-to-pop debate and Los Angeles's newly downbeat self-image.