In 1969, Hollies/Buffalo Springfield/Byrds supergroup Crosby Stills and Nash released their debut album, which remains an undisputed hit to this day. Just eight months later, after adding Neil Young, they released Deja Vu, a sprawling, inconsistent disc showcasing a band that already sounded like it was fracturing.

​It was true. That summer, CSNY dissolved, and all four members would release solo albums before 1970 was over. 

In the following years, Neil Young returned to Crazy Horse. Stephen Stills formed Manassas. Crosby and Nash, however, were still pretty chill with eachother (note: this has changed). In 1972, they released Graham Nash/David Crosby, the first of many albums released by different combinations of the four artists (there was also the Stills-Young Band and various appearances across eachother’s solo records).

​It’s not hard to anticipate what the album sounds like: free of their harder rocking bandmates, Nash and Crosby lean more toward the folk side of folk rock, Nash using the full extent of his pop sensibilities (“Southbound Train,” “Immigrant Man”), Crosby creating darker mood pieces (“Whole Cloth,” “Where Will I Be?”). What’s surprising, however, is how much fresher it is than Deja Vu.

​Where Deja Vu often diverged into a pissing contest between the four partners, this disk is almost entirely free of ego, both members singularly focused on the project above themselves. This freshness rockets this understated disk into the upper strata of the CSNandsometimesY comprehensive catalogue. ​