If one thing can be counted on in the wild world of rock & roll, it’s that Neil Young will surprise the listener. In the past 55 years of releasing albums, that is a constant. On his new album, ‘Before And After’ (out December 8th), Young has approached a totally eclectic collection of mostly obscure songs like a painter with a new palette.
Picking from a vast array of his originals, Young chooses favourites from his playbook like a trip into his music history and performs them mostly alone taking a solo acoustic journey to a new place. Each of the songs blend and create one continuous flow, clocking in at a 48-minute pure and intimate listening experience. Produced by Lou Adler and Neil Young and mixed by Young and Niko Bolas, aka The Volume Dealers, this is unlike any other album he has released to date.
Young describes ‘Before And After’ succinctly: “The feeling is captured, not in pieces, but as a whole piece — designed to be listened to that way. This music presentation defies shuffling, digital organisation, separation. Only for listening. That says it all.”
New versions of the songs themselves seamlessly move and morph with mesmerising clarity, beginning with his earliest Buffalo Springfield appearance, ‘Burned’, to the recent ‘Don’t Forget Love’ (from 2021’s ‘Barn’) and including the previously unreleased song ‘If You Got Love’.
Weaving into a singular sonic tapestry for the ages; this new album is a time-trip of the highest order, capturing the world of a musician who never stops moving.
‘Before And After’ is now available to pre-order HERE.
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