Weld

If you were to look up the meaning of the word weld in the Oxford English Dictionary you'd find: *Weld v. unite (pieces of esp. heated metal etc.) into solid mass by hammering or pressure*. There's more of course, but that basically wraps it up.

It also wraps up Neil Young ... Crazy Horses' new double live album. A merciless wall of noise, Weld is all about guitars. Very loud guitars. It's also about chaos, albeit chaos in perfect motion, chaos in full flights, majestic, marauding - Weld in chaos, in control.

Forgive me a wry chuckle, but I'm sure Neil and the boys broke some hearts as well as eardrums at these gigs. I keep picturing all these thirtysomething couples taking an arm in arm trip down memory lane, matching lighters at the ready, smoking a joint peacefully, nostalgically, and waiting for ol' Neil to stroll on and wheel out a few 'classics', when suddenly, unexplainable - Grrrrrnnnnnnnnaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwzzzzzzzzuuuummmmmmmmaaaaarrrrrnnnk! - Neil's got his amp up to 12, his guitar sounding like it's being exorcised of every devilish rock'n'roll that ever was, ponytails are flapping furiously in the sheer volume of it all and the poor ol' Zippos don't stand a chance in hell!

And this is hell. Guitar hell. But it's also heaven. Trash heaven. You really have to play this ridiculously loud to fully appreciate its, well, beautiful grunginess. The album opens, naturally, with *Hey, Hey, My My (Into The Black)*, Young's anthemic hymn to all things dark, punkish, trashy and loud from his great rebirth album of '79, Rust Never Sleeps, and closes with the way-past-closing-time-bar-room boogie of 'Roll Another Number' from '75's misery-ridden 'Tonight's The Night'. In between Young and Co. deliver two 'hits' ('Cinnamon Girl' and 'Like A Hurricane'), no misses, one cover (a bizarre, twisted, apocalyptic, and overlong, 'Blowin' In The Wind'), and a host of unrelenting, unapologetic and unbridled socially conscious and staunchly rockist mini-epics from their recent 'Ragged Glory' and Young's 'Freedom', two of the best albums of recent years.

Of course, what this gangly, ungainly elder statesman of trash guitar has over most of his young pretenders (Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr. etc.) is that Neil Young can write songs. Damn good songs. Not a total necessity, I know, in a world where feedback is King, but when trashy guitars are really let loose on really good songs, well, the world starts spinning, and it's a wonderful place to spend some time again. 'Cortez The Killer', 'Rockin' In The Free World', 'Fuckin' Up', 'Powderfinger' - these songs hit you like hard rain under a desert sun.

Incidentally, if you're quick and lucky enough, you might just be able to get this double CD with an extra free CD (I don't think it's available on LP or cassette!) entitled Arc, which is all those beginnings and endings that went on and on and on into the realms of sheer noise hell/heaven all especially compiled for those of you who are really sick.

Weld is unwieldy. It's the loud obnoxious gatecrasher that saves your otherwise dull party. It could save your otherwise dull record collection. For those of you sick of music that promises much and delivers fuck all - get Weld. Soon.