ALBUM REVIEW: Buffalo Springfield - Last Time Around

    Buffalo Springfield was a volatile entity - it was destined to burnt hot, bright, and fast. To burn out rather than fade away. Even in the midst of recording their second album, the now classic Buffalo Springfield Again, the group was splintered, to the point where musicians working on Neil Young's material were under the impression that they were working on a Neil Young solo album. By 1968, things were not much better, and if anything they had only gotten worse. Drug arrests, band squabbling, and an increasingly absent Neil Young, who was becoming all too comfortable with the habit of just not showing up to shows if he wasn't up to it. The band didn't even make it through half of the year, and by May of 1968, Buffalo Springfield was scattered to the wind, with each member left to pick up their own pieces. Let it be known, then, that Last Time Around, released in July of that year, is somewhere between a leftovers album and a posthumous release. This album is Buffalo Springfield's wake, and is in part the result of contractual obligation on behalf of ATCO, with songs that were recorded anywhere from March of '68 to February the year prior. In spite of a scattered history and slapdash creation, there is something fascinating about Last Time Around, and least of all because the album is probably better than its reputation lets on. 

    Granted, because of the album's complicated history, evaluating it as a Buffalo Springfield record does give us a strange task at hand - sure, it technically does have Richie Furay, Stephen Stills, Neil Young, and all the other pieces that made up the group on it, but if we're being honest, Young had checked out long ago, and the fact he's only contributed two songs shows it. That's not to say his two songs are bad or obviously throwaways - "I Am a Child" remains probably his most valued composition with this record, but that's not to cast off the opening track "On the Way Home", a sort of bright sunshine pop leaning song that wouldn't feel out of place on The Monkees' Instant Replay album a year later. I mean that as a compliment, really. In place of Neil Young, Richie Furay and Jim Messina help to pick up the slack, and the former finds himself in the same boat of psychedelia that helped make Buffalo Springfield Again such an exciting release. Furay's "Merry-Go-Round" and the mysterious and melancholic "Hour of Not Quite Rain" are two immediate standouts on the record, and the latter may as well be his own "Expecting to Fly", serving the same emotional intensity and lush production. Messina's sole offering is more in line with the Furay brand, a country rock tune called.. well, "Carefree Country Day". Slightly twee? Perhaps, but Furay gives a vocal performance that invokes a bit of Harry Nilsson in my mind, so that makes it a winner in my book. To both their credits, they didn't write "Uno Mundo", some sort of strange latin rock song penned by Stills that proves waiting until Manassas to do the genre again was the right decision.

    While we're on the topic of Stephen Stills, I'll give him a bit of credit - he pens this album's strongest moments, and is the real ace in the hole for Buffalo Springfield's ride into the light. Had a song like "Pretty Girl Why" found its way onto Again, it would've undoubtedly been one of the album's strongest moments, and it helps give some legitimacy to the claim that Stills was the real leader in Springfield. "Questions" is, of course, another highlight, and clearly Stills felt the same, given that he re-recorded the song two years later with his new group. That version is, of course, part of a story for another review, but this original interpretation, still manages to soar high as a bird on this release. In some respects, Stills is the one uniting piece across this album that helps to keep it in the realm of Buffalo Springfield, even as Jim Messina takes Bruce Palmer's place as bassist and as Neil tips out the door for the fifth time that day. While "Pretty Girl Why" and "Questions" remain Stills' best compositions on the album, that isn't to discount "Special Care", which may be one of the group's most underrated tunes, a rather bold statement given the group only ever released three albums, but one I'm more than willing to stand by. That prize could also go to Furay's own "Kind Woman", sung by Messina, which closes out the album. As a gentle country rock piece with clean harmonies, it not only signals for Furay and Messina's next project, but it serves as a sweet and somewhat fitting final moment for Buffalo Springfield - one last song for the crowd as they all leave their chairs and the show reaches its conclusion...

    ...and reach its conclusion it did. Springfield was scattered. The story afterwards is no secret, and we all know about how Poco, Crosby, Stills & Nash, and Neil's own solo success would rise up above Buffalo Springfield, and would all arguably soar higher than their original group ever did. Even still, the tale of Buffalo Springfield produced three very good rock records, and it's their final statement, no matter how slapped together, that seems to be unfairly written out of the story. It's the weird one - it doesn't have the major hit of "For What It's Worth" on it like the debut, and it doesn't have the same artistic lauding and praise that Buffalo Springfield Again had. Maybe in another world, if Springfield didn't combust, this album would never have even been pressed. I think that would've been a damn shame, because as a final record from Buffalo Springfield, it's a more than effective last moment. Their coda is one last offering of what made them so special, even as each member kept showing us what made each of them special in the aftermath.

RATING: ✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯

Listen to Last Time Around.