"You know, the darkest hour is always
just before the dawn." Crosby
This represents a return to form. CSN had
just been on a very successful tour as a trio, with no band, and the after effects are
felt here. The songs sound like the band worked together, with Stills sharing vocals on
Nash songs, Nash and Crosby collaborating on These Empty Days and Stills helping Crosby
with the writing of Camera. The pure trio format is not used here, with Stills and a
studio band playing almost all the music. But the arrangements and production are much
improved over the dismal Live It Up. The material holds up well to the more simple
arrangements. This is a collection of solid songs. Where this album is lacking is in
classic, centerpiece songs.
The core of the project is four songs
dealing with the LA riots and the problems of the inner city. Each works on one or more
levels, but all of them fall short in the end, and that is what holds this back from being
a classic set. Stills famous response to the Sunset Strip riots, the Buffalo
Springfield’s For What It’s Worth, was an instant classic. It was nonspecific
enough to be timeless, it was strikingly ambivalent and the spare arrangement brought out
all of it’s strengths (unlike the later, overblown CSN covers). After the LA riots he
wrote It Won’t Go Away, a passionate and at times brilliant song. When he played it
at the LA "trio" show, it was incredibly powerful. The riots were in response to
a true injustice (the Rodney King verdict) and briefly there was a rage in the entire
community that wasn’t just about "people of color," a fact that
Stills’ angry song brings out well. After the riots, however, that rage was
diffused,
with much of it directed at the rioters (by and large people of color). A moment of
solidarity was lost in anger and fear. The complexity of all of this is lost in this song,
which ends up with Stills envisioning a plot by "someone of evil intent" to keep
the races afraid of each other. Paranoia strikes deep, indeed. In this moment the song
loses it’s direction, and stops speaking for all of us.
Nash was inspired by the riots to write
After the Storm, a very personal song about the things that make persevering
worthwhile.
Much smaller in scope, it succeeds on those modest terms. Stills and Crosby provide
another pair of songs on the problems of the inner city. Bad Boy is Stills
compassionate,
heavy take on inner city toughs just trying to survive and Crosby’s Street to Lean On
has a catchy chorus, and mixed results on the verses. It is too bad that Haven’t We
Lost Enough and Yours and Mine were used on Live It Up. They would have fit the theme of
this album and provided the sort of center that this album needed to push it over the top.
Elsewhere Stills’ writing is routine
(Only Waiting For You and Panama). The brilliance of his late 60’s/early 70’s
work seems a long way off. Now he often tries to muscle his way through songs, where
before he knew the virtues of letting a song stand on its own. Some of his best work has
been sparse (For What It’s Worth, Helplessly Hoping, 4 + 20, Black Queen
(acoustic
live), Go Back Home, Johnny’s Garden, Haven’t We Lost Enough, to name just a
very few). He left himself room for great guitar playing, complex lyrics, harmonies,
rhythm changes, nuances. So much of his work now is reduced to riffs with no subtlety or
imagination.
It is Graham Nash who shines most on After
the Storm. The best song is Find a Dream, not at all the Nash fluff piece the title
promises. This is a dark, atmospheric song, largely acoustic but flavored by Stills’
electric lead, with shared lead vocals by Stills and Nash rather like the traded vocal
style of The Band. He also provides Unequal Love and These Empty Days, two songs about the
hard side of love.
Crosby begins to find himself here. Camera
is a jaunty, melodic opportunity for him to laugh at himself, and Till It Shines is a more
bluesy, full voiced type of outing. These songs are good, and provide a hint of his much
better work to come on the debut album of CPR.
This is a solid piece of work from a
veteran band. CSN should be putting out work like this regularly, interspersed with the
occasional album that stands above this. We have to hope this is a return to form, and not
a peak.
Raincheck.
