On the surface, everything is wrong with this album. The cover must rank as the worst Neil Young album cover ever, if not the worst album cover ever in the history of rock. The music is almost too painful to listen to, the synthesizers intrusive, the guitars either non-existent or brutally distorted, and Steve Jordan's drums mixed so high it feels as if you are being relentlessly pummelled in the side of the head. Struggle past this initial barrage, however, and things can be allowed to fall into place. At first glance the cover might well be an eyesore, but the statement is sharp. This plane has gone down. Crashed. Almost every song conveys a message of struggle and weariness, a man at breaking point: Weight Of The World, I Got A Problem (with its outrageous scream at the beginning), Pressure. All the tracks are sung against a surprisingly sparse backing, leaving little doubt that there are really only three people at work here. Everything is badly produced and out of kilter. But the irony is that in being badly produced it only adds to the meaning. Guitars that want to scream end up being stifled; the drums, pushed well forward, beat everything else in to the background, only the synthesizers being allowed to let their presence be felt. There is great music here struggling to be heard and memorable moments throughout. Neil yelling, "I've got to fight to control (the violent side)"; the man walking away unscathed from a car accident; the double take in People On The Street. And it finishes with a veiled warning, "I'm just a drifter, I'll stay until you tie me down." Wonderfully awful stuff.
