release date: Oct. 30, 2012
format: 2 cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,58]
producer: Neil Young, John Hanlon and Mark Humphreys
label: Reprise Records - nationality: Canada
Track highlights: Disc 1: 1. "Driftin' Back" - 2. "Psychedelic Pill" - 3. "Ramada Inn" - 4. "Born in Ontario" - Disc 2: 2. "She's Always Dancing" - 3. "For the Love of Man" - 4. "Walk Like a Giant"
33rd studio album by Neil Young recorded with Crazy Horse is released only 4½ months after his collaboration studio album with Crazy Horse Americana, once again proving Young's vitality. Every now and then Young slows down - two years pass on and then he puts out two albums in the same year - back on track! Where Americana was a bunch of old songs and covers in new arrangements, this is brand new material from the man himself, and I can't help thinking that this was the album he really put all efforts in that year. Not only is it an album of new compositions - it's also Young's first 2-disc album, and with a playing time at more than 1 hour and 27 mins, it's his longest studio album to date; although it 'only' contains 9 tracks. Two of the compositions have a playing time above 16 mins. and the very first track has a playing time at 27:36 mins [!].
With its distorted 'psychedelic rock' sound, the album makes me think of Broken Arrow and an older album like Rust Never Sleeps both also with Crazy Horse. It has the same distorted feedback sound, as one will find on Broken Arrow and yet it dwells likewise throughout the single tracks as opposed to the more 'rock'-fussed albums Ragged Glory and Weld with Crazy Horse. And although, he also made Americana this year together with Crazy Horse the style here is really not linked in any way with the former release from this year, which compared to this sounds more like less worked-through material - something that could have stayed in the studio. However, their get-together work for Americana was probably what was needed to create this one, 'cause here they sound like the tight unit they used to be.
The album may not contain great single hits - it's more like one organic type of thing that grows, evolves and changes its direction running through a field, sometimes rapidly, sometimes in slow-motion while reviving some of the same elements one will find on some the quartet's familiar pieces.
I really enjoy this one and think of it as Neil Young's best studio album in more than a decade.
[ allmusic.com 3,5 / 5, Rolling Stone, NME 4 / 5 stars ]
