"Rolling Stone" critic Rob Sheffield calls "Down by the River" and "Cowgirl in the Sand" the "key tracks" on "Everybody Knows This is Nowhere", calling them "long, violent guitar jams, rambling over the nine-minute mark with no trace of virtuosity at all, just staccato guitar blasts sounding as though Young is parachuting down into the middle of the Hatfield-McCoy feud.In one solo, the same staccato note is repeated 38 times.