After the Gold Rush sees Young develop further as a visionary songwriter after the rich successes of his previous LP Everybody Knows this is Nowhere. Although the simmering guitar jams of the previous LP return (Southern Man, When You Dance I Can Really Love), the heart of this record is in Young’s lyricism. Songs like the surreal title track and Don’t Let it Bring You Down highlight Young’s ability to blend darkness and light into the same lyric and see him shifting gears toward the more folk oriented Harvest. Only Love Can Break Your Heart is demonstrates Young’s gift for heart-string-pulling balladry and Southern Man with it’s condemnation of bigotry in America’s south earned itself a huge clap back in the form of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Sweet Home Alabama. After the Gold Rush can be seen as a transition between the rockin’ Crazy Horse assisted Everybody Knows This is Nowhere and Harvest but I find it to be a perfect blend of the two, capturing Neil at his most creative and vital.
Pete Whelan 