Neil Young Announces New Album ‘Before And After’
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 – set for release through Reprise on 8 December – Young has approached a totally eclectic collection of mostly obscure songs from his back catalogue like a painter with a new palette.
Pre-order Before And After.
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 tracklist:
I’m The Ocean
Homefires
Burned
On The Way Home
If You Got Love
A Dream That Can Last
Birds
My Heart
When I Hold You In My Arms
Mother Earth
Mr Soul
Comes A Time
Don’t Forget Love
Pre-order Before And After.