Neil Young - Le Noise

 Another year, another Neil Young album; although the sixty-four year-old’s productivity rate remains quite startling (this is his eighth studio album since the turn of the century), the problem of late has been a slip in quality. Ok, so maybe all of those eight albums have at least one great track on them – the diabolical post-9/11isms of Are You Passionate? being an exception – but the consistency displayed across his classic seventies oeuvre has been sorely lacking since he last triumphed some sixteen years ago on Sleeps With Angels. Luckily, then, that these days for every creative lull there’s an über-producer waiting by the phone to help pick up the slack. Enter Young’s fellow Canadian Daniel Lanois, the go-to guy famous for recording Dylan’s career renaissance albums Oh Mercy and Time Out Of Mind; and while Le Noise (a pun on Lanois’s surname, geddit?) stands apart sonically from those two albums, it certainly shares many of Time Out Of Mind’s principal themes – specifically those of growing old, and trying to remain relevant to those around you in your personal and artistic life.

Recorded at Lanois’s home with just Young on either electric or acoustic guitar, the producer’s influence is apparent from Le Noise’s first note – a huge power chord that quickly signals Shakey’s intentions to play as loud as he ever has. Live guitar and vocals were seemingly sent right around the huge house via a massive network of internal pipes, enough to produce an incredible echo chamber effect; never has one man on a guitar made such a massive sound. Of course, none of this would count for much if the songs themselves weren’t up to scratch; as luck would have it, though, Young has written some of his best songs in years here.

The opening trio of ‘Walk with Me’, ‘Sign of Love’ and ‘Someone’s Gonna Rescue You’ all follow the same autobiographical narrative: the need and desire to have someone close to you as the clock begins to wind down. Though simple, concise and nostalgic, all three are crucially free from the sentimentality that dogged 2005’s Prairie Wind. ‘Love and War’, the fourth track, is the first of two acoustic epics here, and might just be one of the most personal songs he’s ever written; “When I sing about love and war / I don’t really know what I’m saying” sings the old man, trying desperately to reach the high notes one last time. The beautifully sad refrain of “Daddy won’t ever come home” manages to say more about the futility of war than the whole of his Living With War LP did back in 2006.

Unfortunately, however, the less said about what immediately follows the better; ‘Angry World’ is a rambling mess that sounds lyrically deranged and tries its best to sabotage an otherwise solid return to form. Suffice to say it would probably be a much angrier world for this listener if the ‘skip’ button hadn’t been invented. Thankfully ‘Hitchhiker’ redeems things straight after this misstep: first written back in the seventies, it charts the ups and downs of Young’s career through the drugs he was consuming at various different times. What may sound boring and self-indulgent on paper is turned into an electrifying beast by Young and Lanois’s interplay; a long-in-the-making gem that deserves to be placed alongside the very best songs he’s written.
Elsewhere, ‘Peaceful Valley Boulevard’s length (seven minutes-plus) and general existential feel recall the epic ‘Ambulance Blues’ from On The Beach. Once more, the sparse production allows the song to breathe as a classic Shakey refrain of “Who’ll be the beacon in the night?” rings out. It’s just one of many highlights here from a musical beacon who’s lost little of his glow with age. After a decade of frustrating mediocrity it’s a pleasure to know he’s still got it.