Neil Young & Crazy Horse: Neil Young (vocals, guitar, flute, harmonica, accordion, piano, marimba); Frank "Poncho" Sampedro (guitar, piano, synthesizer, bass marimba); Billy Talbot (bass, vibraphone, bass marimba); Ralph Molina (drums).

Recorded at The Complex Studios, West Los Angeles, California.

SLEEPS WITH ANGELS was nominated for a 1995 Grammy Award for Best Rock Album.

Though it once again reunites him with Crazy Horse and includes such typical rock workouts as the lengthy "Change Your Mind" and the raucous "Piece of Crap," Sleeps With Angels is more musically varied than most of Neil Young's albums with his erstwhile backup group, ranging from piano-based ballads like the album opener, "My Heart," and closer, "A Dream That Can Last," which might have fit on After the Gold Rush, to the country-folk "Train of Love," which sounds like a leftover from Harvest Moon, and the hard-edged grunge of the title track. The Crazy Horse influence comes in the songs' structural simplicity and the unpolished playing. Though musically diverse, Sleeps With Angels is a song cycle in which Young repeats the same themes and images. To put it simply, the album is about death, presumably primarily the suicide of Nirvana's Kurt Cobain, which occurred while it was being recorded. From "My Heart," which declares, "It's not too late" and "Somehow, someone has a dream come true," to "A Dream That Can Last," which declares, "There's a better life for me someday," Young begins and ends with a shaky, uncertain optimism, even though his language is riddled with references to violence, especially gunfire, and desperation. As in the album's title, even the references to sleep and dreams are about death. Young repeats some of the same lines from song to song and sometimes the same music ("Western Hero" and "Train of Love" have the same tune). The album thus has a tired, mournful feel that is both compelling and off-putting. Young had not investigated such forbidding territory since the days of Tonight's the Night and On the Beach, and Sleeps With Angels is on a par with those often harrowing works. ~ William Ruhlmann

Judging by the regard with which Neil Young is embraced by contemporary bands, it's clear that this rocker retained his youthful crankiness and experimental verve--willfully oblivious to popular fashions. Like John Mellencamp's DANCE NAKED, Young's SLEEPS WITH ANGELS has the mythic feel and smell of vintage, crawl-under-the-car and change-the-oil rock and roll.

SLEEPS WITH ANGELS is produced in a simple, uncluttered, rootsy manner, full of gritty, earnest appeal. Young projects the grace of an elder mentor, aware of his own mortality ("Prime Of Life"), trying to save his friends from unnecessary grief, while gently prodding his wildest children away from the precipice ("Driveby") and looking back fondly on his own ancestors ("Western Heroes").

It doesn't take too great a leap of imagination to hear "Sleeps With Angels" as "The Ballad Of Kurt & Courtney." Grungeophonic rockers such as "Change Your Mind" and "Blue Eden" answer despair with an odd mix of compassion and rage for those beyond saving, while the rest of SLEEPS WITH ANGELS seeks the saviour in shopping malls, tries to remember what made life worth living and decries disposable America (the aptly titled "Piece Of Crap"). SLEEPS WITH ANGELS is a magnificent autumnal work by a rocker who realized there are viable life options besides burning out or fading away.

Rolling Stone (8/25/94, p.88) - 5 Stars - Classic "...SLEEPS WITH ANGELS is not the first album Young has made about the widening cracks in the American dream or what's left of the teenage refugees after the broken promises of the '60s....it is among his best..."

Spin (10/94, p.108) - Recommended - "...SLEEPS WITH ANGELS expresses garden-variety modern melancholia laced with romantic musing....You'd think the sage and skeptical Young might have more to say. Maybe next trek..."

Q (9/94, p.112) - 5 Stars - Indispensable - "...SLEEPS WITH ANGELS is too rich and vivid to digest all at once. The effect is like hearing a whole load of new DECADE, taken from the most stunning points along Young's 30-year-journey..."

The Wire (p.48) - "SLEEPS WITH ANGELS is perhaps Young's most detailed and immersive song based record since his 1969 solo debut, largely due to the variety of instrumental textures employed and the warmth and depth producer David Briggs brings to the mix."

Musician (10/94, p.83) - "...It's a little like San Francisco weather: If you don't care for Neil Young's musical style at any given moment, wait a while and it'll change....SLEEPS WITH ANGELS might be the closest thing we get, this side of DECADE II, to the best of all the various 'Neils' together...'It's heavy and light.' It's also great...."

Village Voice (2/28/95) - Ranked #5 in the Village Voice's 1994 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll.

Mojo (Publisher) (p.58) - Ranked #66 in Mojo's "100 Modern Classics" -- "Young's angels and demons show out in force, battling mortality and the fragile bonds we shore up in defence."

Mojo (Publisher) (1/95, p.50) - Included in Mojo's "25 Best Albums of 1994" - "...dark grunge-folk album of meditations on fame and poverty and love....The result was riveting."

NME (Magazine) (12/24/94, p.22) - Ranked #11 in NME's list of the 'Top 50 Albums Of 1994.'

NME (Magazine) (8/13/94, p.47) - 9 - Excellent Plus "...SLEEPS WITH ANGELS is written with contemplation and healing in mind, hymns to the human condition, universal church music from Mister Soul..."