The Mac Weekly

Issue date: 11/2/07 Section: The Arts

I was a bit skeptical when I first heard about "Chrome Dreams II," a new album by Neil Young intended as a semi-sequel to a widely bootlegged yet unreleased 1977 album titled (naturally) "Chrome Dreams." Young's latest album is his third since the near fatal brain aneurism he suffered in 2005.

His last two albums, "Prairie Wind," a collection of optimistic and at times inspiring folksy country tunes, and "Living With War," an abrasive attack on the President and the war, seemed to collectively lack a great deal of original artistic effort on the part of Young.

Rewind 30 or so years, and one might recall Neil Young's "Comes a Time," the title track of his 1978 album, where he sings "Comes a time, when you're drifting. Comes a time, when you settle down." Perhaps Neil has simply drifted somewhere into the latter stage, as so many once important musical acts inevitably do, content to ride his previous fame while making typical, self-satisfying, and ultimately unexciting music.

Young's new album, "Chrome Dreams II," proves that things aren't that simple. By striking an ideal balance between artistic comfort and fresh innovation, Young shows that he can work well within his own artistic realm that has proven successful year after year, but in an interesting and provocative manner. His old time band mates Ben Keith, Rick Rosas, and Ralph Molina pitch in to help produce a classic Neil Young sound, yet "Chrome Dreams II" is anything but unoriginal.

There's quite a bit of "drifting," going on in his new work, which runs over an hour, and includes everything from Young country-folk tunes like "Beautiful Bluebird" to aggressive grungy numbers like "Dirty Old Man."

Other album highlights include an epic 18-minute song called "Ordinary People," as well as the album's finale, "The Way," which features Young singing with a children's choir. Standing alone, none of the songs, with the exception of "Ordinary People," seems to be a particularly notable addition to the endless list of classic Neil Young tunes, but the ten songs come together cohesively to form a worthwhile, stylistically diverse and interesting addition to Young's ever-growing discography. Neil is certainly past the point of pure experimentation, and is working within a certain comfort zone, and many songs on his new album sound very typically Neil Young (mostly in a good way), but he's certainly not afraid to push the limits, as evidenced, among other things, by the two 10+ minute tracks on the album, and in adherence to his famous line from the 1979 classic "My My, Hey Hey," he definitely isn't ready to fade away.

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools