What the record is and where it came from
Buffalo Springfield Again is the band’s second album, released in November 1967. It was recorded over nine months amid dysfunction, with members working independently. It features Richie Furay’s first songwriting contributions and marks the band’s progression to psychedelia and hard rock.
How it sounds, and how it was made
The album sounds like three separate bands colliding in the same studio. Session musicians fill gaps left by Bruce Palmer’s deportation and Neil Young’s absences. Jack Nitzsche arranged ‘Expecting to Fly’ without any band members present. The room is dry and close, with bass lines often doubled by outside players and guitar textures ranging from clipped folk-rock to fuzzed-out psychedelia. No tempo, key or mic technique is documented — only that the production isolates voices and instruments, not blends them.
What lands
‘Mr. Soul’ lands with tight, staccato guitar and a vocal that refuses to soften. ‘Bluebird’ lands with layered harmonies and a hard-edged guitar solo that cuts through the mix. ‘Broken Arrow’ lands with its six-minute sprawl — a suite of shifting sections held together only by its own insistence on expansion.
What does not
It does not cohere. It does not sound like a band playing together. It does not sustain a single mood, tempo or instrumental palette. It does not resolve tension — it documents its accumulation.
The ideas inside it
Faith as fragile flight (‘Expecting to Fly’), disillusionment dressed as swagger (‘Mr. Soul’), childhood promise curdling into adult drift (‘A Child’s Claim to Fame’), and rock as both refuge and rupture (‘Bluebird’, ‘Broken Arrow’). These are not themes developed across the record — they are individual statements, unconnected by arrangement or sequencing.
Who should hear it, and who should not
Producers, session musicians, and anyone studying how records absorb absence. Not casual listeners seeking unity or narrative arc.
Is it worth your time
Yes, if you want to hear how a band fractures while making its most ambitious record. No, if you expect cohesion or shared intent. It rewards attention to how absence shapes sound — not as a flaw, but as a condition of the recording.
