Пятница 13 Ноя 2009, 9:09

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – Déjà Vu

The gain of a new son: Neil Young has finally arrived. Strangely the same happens as with Buffalo Springfield: where the previous CSN-album was a quite coherent one, this one seems (just like Buffalo Springfield Again) more a compilation of songs made by great individuals of course. I guess Neil Young is the one to blame!

After the first nice but not that memorable two songs, Almost Cut My Hair tells us what it is all about: slicing electric guitars, superb singing by Crosby (reminds me a bit of Jason Molina here). It’s not a coincidence this is the first song on the album that involves Neil Young on a guitar, I guess. Great song!
Can a guitar weep and can a voice mourn more than Neil Young’s than in Helpless? No, of course not. Shivers!
Déjà Vu is happy to present itself as a mini-suite (at least I like to think so), something CSN already proved to be good at. And the harmonic singing sounds ni-i-i-ce! Perfection is in the details…
Where did the Simon & Garfunkel feeling go? Our House brings it back again! Happy poppy music and catchy are the key words here.
Oh, and the softness and the sweet voice of Stephen Stills on 4 + 20 calms you down before switching to Country Girl, a typical Neil Young song with a beautiful composition (especially the magnificent end!)

The harmonic singing was already shown off in the previous Crosby, Stills & Nash album, and is still impressive here. The coherence that characterized the previous album is a bit lost here… But that doesn’t change the fact that there are some extraordinary songs (I listed them above) on the album, more impressive than on the previous album. However, even if this album doesn’t contain one bad song, I still have a very small feeling that a few more Neil Young guitar-injections would have made this album just perfect.

(Mooimooiheelmooi: Almost Cut My Hair, Helpless, Country Girl)