release date: Apr. 21, 1989
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,46]
producer: Neil Young, Niko Bolas
label: Warner-Pioneer, Japan- nationality: Canada
Tracklist: 1. "Cocaine Eyes" (3,5 / 5) - 2. "Don't Cry" (4 / 5) - 3. "Heavy Love" (3,5 / 5) - 4. "On Broadway" - 5. "Eldorado"
[Tracks 2, 4, and 5 were later that year included (in alternate versions) on Freedom.]
A 5-track ep album that originally only got its release in Japan and Australia. On the front cover the album is only credited Neil Young, whereas on the back it states Neil Young & The Restless. The backing band is not the 'usual suspects', Crazy Horse members, nor artists you'll find on his previous albums. Musicians on the album are only Neil Young on guitar and vocals together with Chad Cromwell on drums and Rick 'The Bass Player' Rosas on bass. Both would later join Young on his albums Freedom, Prairie Wind, Living With War and Fork in the Studios.
I think it's a really tight and fine ep, which forecasts the grunge rock style of both Freedom and Ragged Glory, and in that respect is of great importance in a musical historical perspective. Both "Cocaine Eyes", "Don't Cry", and "Heavy Love" are almost sheer grunge rock and garage rock tracks with their sneering rough and distorted sound. Only non-Neil Young composition on the album is the 1963 classic soul song "On Broadway" , which became an immediate hit by The Drifters - here in a rather unusual version.
