Leave the Driving to Neil

Musicians in rock rarely release their most ambitious works thirty-five years into their career. Apparently, no one told Neil Young. Greendale Young’s newest album featuring only himself, Ralph Molina and Billy Talbot of his long time backing band Crazy Horse might he is most remarkable work since Freedom, or maybe even as far back as Rust Never Sleeps. It might be hard to believe but this is Neil Young at his finest doing of all things, a concept album. Greendale is the story of a town by the same name and in particular the Green family. The Green family suffers a series of tragedies including murder, incarceration and media scrutiny only to end in the youngest daughter Sun Green moving to Alaska to fight for environmental causes.This is all of course Neil Young expounding his own views through these characters. His view s on the media, war, the environment and….well, let him tell you. What is important is Young patiently and defiantly strums through these ten tracks vulnerably wailing and railing against the not so perfect world he sees around him in 2003. Recorded in the most intentionally lo-fi format (It’s not implausible that most of these songs might have been cut in one take) Young jams the blues, old school folk and his own specialty, the two note over-bended guitar solo that somehow manages to really work. Even after all these years.