Album Review: Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Colorado

There’s no two ways about it, the last few Neil Young albums – apart from some marvellous archival releases like Hitchhiker and Songs For Judy – have been less than great, culminating in 2017’s fairly horrendous The Visitor. In fact, the last half-decent one was Psychedelic Pill with Crazy Horse, back in 2012. He’s back in the saddle with The ‘Horse - Nils Lofgren is in to replace the retired Frank “Poncho’ Sampedro - here, as it were, which is cause for celebration.

Things start off well with ‘Think Of Me’. There’s a blast of harmonica over acoustic guitar, nice backing vocal “oohs” and a piano somewhere in the background. Young straps on - and, crucially, turns up - Old Black for the thirteen and a half minutes – a mere short stroll compared to Pill’s ‘Driftin’ Back’ – of ‘She Showed Me Love’. Never mind the slightly awkward lyrics about “white guys trying to kill Mother Nature” and enjoy instead the ‘Cinnamon Girl’ like chords behind the great chorus, and The ‘Horse going at it like they used to do. It is, if you’ll allow it, raggedly glorious, although it could have done with a bit of editing, especially near the end.

‘Olden Days’ might have squeezed on to Freedom, and mid-paced slabs like ‘Help Me Lose My Mind’ and the great ‘Milky Way’ are worth your time too, as is the lovely, fragile closer ‘I Do’. ‘Green Is Blue’ brings that piano out to the front, as does ‘Eternity’, which, with its faint echo of ‘Till The Morning Comes’, allows the lads to do a fair After The Goldrush impersonation.

It doesn’t all work – ‘Rainbow Of Colours’ drags, and ‘Shut It Down’ hammers the eco message a bit too hard – but fair play to Shakey, this is a welcome step back in the right direction.

https://open.spotify.com/album/47EbZp22zR6rGhKJJsuZBv?si=ku3LgtkTRjKlclZdD0BpbA