Earth & Sky - Graham Nash

ALL MUSIC GUIDE Review
William Ruhlmann
1980

After the relatively unsuccessful Wild Tales in 1974, Graham Nash returned to Crosby, Stills & Nash & Young (1974), Crosby & Nash (1975), and Crosby, Stills & Nash (1977), letting six years go by before he tried another solo album. The success of The CSN reunion album (partly group, but the relative failure of Stephen Stills's Throroughfare Gap album in late 1978 suggested that that appetite did not extend to individual band members, a point confirmed by the reception for Nash's third solo album, Earth & Sky, which missed the Top 100. 

Nash was, as usual, honestly exploring his personal interests, notably on "Magical Child," in which he celebrated the birth of a son, and his political interests especially on the anti-nuclear waste anthem "Barrel of Pain (Half-Life)." But though he called in the usual army of Southern California musicians, including Crosby and Stills, there was nothing new here and little that ranked near his best. 
Nash's art as a songwriter and performer is so unaffected that the line between what is simple and direct and what is merely oversimplified is sometimes dangerously thin, and much of Earth & Sky was just too slight for the messages it was asked to carry.