Oceanside Countryside

A charming history emerges from Young's immerse archive. [Apr 2025, p.70]

A slightly more cohesive album - a complement to 1978's Comes A Time rather than a first take, perhaps. [Apr 2025, p.97]

The real keeper here the brooding, seven-minute "The Old Homestead", as cryptic as anything he'd written since "the Last Trip To Tulsa". [Mar 2025, p.53]

If Young’s Archives were tiered by quality (with Homegrown and Way Down in the Rust Bucket at the top), then Oceanside Countryside is at least a B+. It’s a very enjoyable, consistent and relaxing listen that doesn’t come with any of the baggage of many of Young’s heavier releases. Just splendid.

Deep-pocketed obsessives who’ve managed to keep pace with Young’s reissues may be disappointed to hear that most of the raw versions of these songs have appeared before. But for more regular fans, the music on this album is wonderful. It’s supremely chilled yet deeply soulful, a dream soundtrack for early-summer evenings

It’s a different way to experience some familiar tunes, and yet another window into one of the more vibrant periods of Young’s ever-shifting creativity.

Though many of its tracks would eventually find their way onto such popular Young releases of the late-’70s and early-’80s as Comes a Time, Rust Never Sleeps, and Hawks and Doves, they appear here in their most naked and unvarnished forms, lending Oceanside Countryside much of its appeal.

Oceanside Countryside may or may not hold broad appeal for anyone other than the most fervent Neil Young aficionados. .... In the end, the inveterate iconoclast’s front cover portrait for Oceanside Countryside accurately reflects the LP’s artful combination of style and effect.

The only ‘new’ song is ‘It Might Have Been’. Here Young really leans into country vibes. Slow strumming. Lilting, falsetto vocals with a fiddle solo to boot. It’s one of the standout moments on the album and to finally hear the original version, after all these years, is a blast. All of the songs are slightly different to their original versions.