Comes a Time by Neil Young

Comes a Time, Neil Young's ninth studio album, came out on Reprise in October 1978, produced by Young himself and slotted between Decade and Rust Never Sleeps. He pulls the tempo down and the volume way down: this is quiet, porch-light folk and country, with Nicolette Larson's harmonies curling around that high tenor and some of the same players who had backed him on Harvest, his commercial peak.

Like Harvest, it's a record steered by relationships, love songs sung by a man who sounds, for once, almost at ease. No guitar squall, no ragged glory, just unhurried strumming and a voice that aches in all the right places. Young himself counts it among his best albums, as he writes in his memoir Waging Heavy Peace.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.