Le Noise [CD]

Le Noise is an album that Neil Young needed to make. Just when it seemed like the ornery old cowpoke may have said all he had to say, along come 38 minutes and 1 second of sonic assault that remind us why his career has lasted over 40 years, and why he still matters.

Daniel Lanois's production signature is far less evident that might have been expected (or feared), but whatever his role in the delivery of this album, his touch has been just enough to breathe new life into Young's 'Old Black'. Songs like 'Love And War' with its echoes of 'Eldorado' from 1989's Freedom, 'Sign Of Love' and 'Angry World' are the best things that he has written since.... well, since some of the previous best things he has written. There is no band accompaniment; just Young spitting brooding and distorted soundscapes from his electric guitar. Sometimes, this sounds almost like the precursor to a full-on band sound that is about to rush in and thrash a song in true Crazy Horse style, but the restraint is in many ways the album's strength. Here is something entirely familiar, but new.

Most welcome of all is one of a number of 'Holy Grail' songs from Neil Young's archives, 'Hitchhiker', which finally appears on an album 36 years after it first surfaced. Unlike 'Ordinary People' on Chrome Dreams II, 'Hitchhiker' is surrounded by a set of songs that are almost of equal stature. It blends in beautifully with the album's mood, a journey through the past of Young's back pages in the spirit of 'Don't Be Denied', or even 'Helpless'. There is relief in the beautiful 'Love And War' and 'Peaceful Valley Boulevard'. These electric and acoustic bedfellows recall one of Young's previous career highs, the glorious Rust Never Sleeps whose sonic assault saw Young tipping his hat to punk. 32 years later, Le Noise is an album that will sit high up in the canon as one of the best things he has done.

So, some people have given this 5 stars. Then, other people who don't like this record so much, think that all the people who've given it 5 stars are "Neil Young devotees" who give him 5 stars regardless of the quality of the music. Is it not possible that some people do think this deserves 5 stars?

Let me tell you; I'm a Neil Young devotee. But that doesn't mean I think this is a 5 star record. I don't. I too read some of the hype about this record before it's release, claiming it was an instant classic, and that this was Neil's best writing since the 70s. I don't think it is. I'm not disappointed though. But you know; I don't like all Neil's albums. I would give quite a few of them 5 stars, but I bet they aren't the same records every other "Neil Young devotee" or casual Neil Young fan would give 5 stars to. So let's just dispense with all the sniping at people who enjoy certain records more than you do. Can we? Unless those people are actually employed by the record company to get a few good reviews on Amazon...

So that's pretty much all I have to say that hasn't been said already. I agree with most that "Love and War" and "Peaceful Valley Boulevard" are the best songs, and that they are of a high enough quality on their own right. Elsewhere, I don't really think this is representative of the great guitar playing that Neil is capable of, but to me it's obvious that he hasn't gone for virtuosity this time. The songs are low-key and simple - that's just the kind of record he's decided to make. I actually like the idea of it more than I like the execution. I'm certainly not a fan of Lanois. All he seems to have done here is make the guitar sound like Metallica, and added tons of delay to Neil's vocal. It just doesn't sit well with me.

In summary, I don't like Le Noise too much, but I'll defend Neil's right to make it. I certainly don't feel like he's exploiting me, and I don't feel like I've wasted my money. He's creating, trying something a bit different, and it's not all that successful for me. It obviously is for others, though.

Should you buy it? I don't know. You're not going to know whether you like it until you hear it...

The image of Young contained in the video for "Walk with me" is one which I recall and treasure from seeing the man live in concert four times (his Finsbury Park concert in 1993 backed by Booker T and the MGs remains one of the greatest ever). It conjures up the vision of a contrary and craggy grizzly bear, one of "Hell's geriatrics" still growing old disgracefully and daring everyone else to "keep up". Rumours have spread from Young's recent "Twisted Road" tour of the North America that the raw power of his new material was up there with his best. Do all you can to check out the internet for footage of these performances or the videos to fully appreciate his continuing brilliance as a live artist and equally the context for this album.

It would be wonderful to report that "Le Noise" is a game changing masterpiece along the lines of "On the beach" or "Rust never sleeps" but it's not. It is however Young's best album since "Sleeps with Angels" and is testimony to his enduring relevance that any new album releases by the great man excite a level of passion, controversy and debate primarily because we care and he matters. Young has brought in the renown producer Daniel Lanois who previously performed wonders with Dylan's 80s masterpiece "Time out of Mind". The Lanois effect is the sonic equivalent of a band in his own right and while "Le noise" is a Neil Young solo album, six of the eight songs are given the angry "folk metal" treatment with Young's huge Gretch White Falcon howling, chugging, blazing and burning its way through soundscapes drenched in slabs of echo and reverb which conjure wicked tricks through your speakers and amplifiers.

You will Amazon listener need to stick with this one (I really did not like a large part of it for the first five plays) since initially you will find this album superficially devoid of light and shade with the immediate exception of the two acoustic songs "Love and War" and "Peaceful valley boulevard". The former is a gorgeous/gentle summation of Young's passions throughout his long song writing career and once more revisits his life long concerns of anti war messages but this time viewed through the lens of the families involved. Peacefully Valley is a seven minute plus atmospheric classic and the best song on the album which starts off addressing the near extinction of the Bison on the American plains and turns into a wonderful song montage of the history of the West. Its themes essentially reprise those of Zuma's "Cortez the Killer" and transpose them to Kansas and California until they are brought up to date with Young's views on climate change.

In terms of this review that was the easy part. The six electric are songs alternatively more of a mixed assortment. Opener "Walk with me" includes the most destructive and emboldened guitar work this side of Jack White with Young literally spitting out "Walk with me" in the chorus and Lanois piling on the effects. The excellent "Sign of love" starts with a familiar sounding Young riff and could have happily fitted on "Ragged Glory" with full Crazy Horse backing. Yet the absence of a fully fledged rhythm section on all these songs does take some getting use to and as such during the mournful "Someone's gonna rescue you" there are times when you long for instrumental backdrop to be richer and more "coloured in".

The lyrics on "Angry World" which begins and ends with a vocal loop and a huge riff seem to this reviewer to be sloppy underpinned by the refrain "it's an Angry World but everything is gonna be alright" and laudable if obvious platitudes, its not a great song. "Hitchhiker" on the other hand is one of those old songs (1974?) that Young has "dusted down" for the right moment and it's a stunner. It details Young's drugs journey from hash, amphetamine, valium to cocaine and the immense toil it took. As he confesses "Then came paranoia/and it ran away with me/I couldn't sign my autograph/or appear on TV/or see or be seen". There it little doubt that performed live with Crazy Horse this will be of force nine gale intensity. Finally "Rumblin" is a slower and powerful eco electric blues song and a more reflective conclusion to the album standing as a counterpart to the earlier pyrotechnics.

"Le Noise" is overall an excellent record and is one of those Neil Young albums which is clearly intended to confront and provoke. His raison d'etre has always been to doggedly pursue one of rock music's most incredible musical journey's and to continually confound his fans with detours which both perplex but often delight. In dark days I sometimes listen to the line in "Hey Hey My My" namely "once you're gone, you can never come back" and imagine the time when artists like Young are no longer recording and who will step into their shoes? It is a question which sends ghostly shivers since "Le Noise" sees Neil Young still leading and redefining the revolution blues and it proves yet again that he is irreplaceable and without peer.