Best album from the best lyricist ever but still a couple tracks that I don't always feel like listening to.

A lot of hits and a couple misses

Everyone has learned his songs, but no one has played the guitar like this since.

Larry Carlton makes this for me Joni Mitchell's most - I want to say delicious? - work

So incredibly beautiful and cohesive. Best Neil Young record for me with an appropriately chosen title track. Though I personally would've forgone the final song.

Many bands have operated under the maxim: once you find a perfect formula don't change it. Getting the Fugazi guy to just play one bassline over and over and allowing Klinghoffer to play surprisingly creative drums while Frusciante does his thing over the top has resulted in 5 of the most hypnotic, driving, textural, melodic and ultimately religious music I've heard. Or more simply, to quote the man himself:
"If you like me cause you saw me live, and I was beating the fuck out ... read more

Perfect concept album that deeply resonated with me in regards to the intersection of divinity and art. It juggles chaos and order, spiritual authenticity and receptiveness, playing freely with words and living in spaces that don't exist. Without resorting to being sonically avant-garde, he seems to bend reality itself.

Technical perfection. Still the best sounding guitar and vocals I have ever heard. The solo on hitch a ride made me pick up the instrument and unlike almost anything else it still sounds just as magical after hearing it over and over again. One or two tracks that perhaps don't hold much weight on their own, but 4 of the best classic rock songs ever and definitely no skips.

I heard start a war over a stereo years before it was Shazamable and it changed my life - extra crazy to think that, personal association with it aside, every other song on the album is even better! Matt Berninger may have exhausted his schtick with the 2023 albums but here he is at the height of his lyrical powers (sarcastic, dry and by the same token infinitely revealing delivery) and the whole band comes around him to bring this vision to life. The track sequence is perfect, with apartment ... read more

This album is overlooked by many - in my opinion it contains some of the best and most emotional songs they've recorded. Incredible soundscapes (with lovely use of space) that clearly belong to America and all those wide open spaces, and the inextricable feeling of growing old while the world does the same around you, chugging on, watching the beauty disappear but in doing so paying special attention to it. Whole songs are encapsulated in such single moments of beauty, like a chord ... read more

I think I just have a deeply personal appreciation for this album but I think what Don McGlashan envisions here is just so beautiful. Its about growing up in New Zealand, our unique relationship with the land and how we know it like the back of our hand and yet it hides so much magic still. Packed with lovely sonic textures that just sink in over time and perfectly embody the incredibly evocative lyrics (especially contrasting nature with our unignorable presence in it, even in songs that seem ... read more

A few of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard (box of rain, ripple, brokedown palace) outweigh the more meandering sort of honky tonk stuff, which does in itself include some barn burners (friend of the devil, sugar magnolia, even truckin with the unforgettable idea: "what a long strange trip its been"). But overall I'm glad the grateful dead have at least some cohesive studio material.