NEIL YOUNG “LE NOISE” Review

NEIL YOUNG “LE NOISE”
by Richard Zeigler

Neil Young continues to experiment, to try new avenues of creativity, and to put out quality records. The latest shining example of Neil’s never-ending creative quest is Le Noise. The title is a pun on producer Daniel Lanois’s last name, but it also serves to introduce what is on tap here. Young was planning to do an all-acoustic solo album, but once he and Lanois got into the studio, things began to mutate in an unusual direction. Namely, while there are still a couple of acoustic numbers here, the primary focus of the album is solo Neil on ELECTRIC guitar. The results sound largely like the albums Young has done with Crazy Horse, but without Crazy Horse. It’s just Young with his voice and a squalling electric, with occasional vocal loops and sonic tweaks provided by Lanois. While containing only eight songs and 38 minutes of music, this is Young’s most satisfying album in over twenty years. It’s loud and heavy, but also subtle and immediate. Opener “Walk With Me” features most of the elements found throughout the album, with distorted electric chording chugging along with ringing hooks. The two approaches occasionally join together to emphasize the central power chord. There is also a beautiful middle eight with the guitars consigned to the background and Young singing a gorgeous set of “aahs”. At the end, Lanois applies his mastery of blips and bleeps to close things out. It is a powerful love song that cuts straight to the heart. “Sign Of Love” follows, wherein Young plays almost exactly as he would if Crazy Horse were backing him. “Someone’s Going To Rescue You” puts Young’s specially designed hollow body Gretsch electric through its paces, and drew from Lanois the response that the guitar ‘sounded like God”. “Love And War” is one of two album centerpieces. It is slower and more acoustic than the previous cuts, and sees Young professing that it is these two topics that dominate his songwriting, and life in general, as the opening lines state, “When I sing about love and war/I don’t really know what I’m saying/I’ve been in love and I’ve seen a lost of war/Seen a lot of people praying/They pray to Allah and they pray to the Lord/But mostly they pray about love and war.” As with a number of songs here, Neil is not shy about putting himself in the middle of his lyrics, musing on how he thinks about things and has acted upon them. The clearest example of this, and the other centerpiece of the album, is “The Hitchiker”. First started in the 1970s, this song is an autobiographical look at Young’s career and the drugs involved throughout the process. Other autobiographical touches dot the album, particularly in regards to the serenity he feels with his wife, Pegi.
“Peaceful Valley Boulevard” is, musically, the gentlest song on offer here, but its six minutes plus take a hard-edged lyrical look on the history of America’s westward expansion, a theme Young has returned to throughout his career. In sum, this album contains a raft of fine songs, with Neil in fine voice and playing with an intensity that recalls his younger days. But in addition, its approach yields a completely new addition to the Young canon, the solo electric record. Given the quality present here, one should not be surprised to see other longtime rock icons take a similar approach (Bruce, are you listening?). 

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JIMI HENDRIX “WEST COAST SEATTLE BOY” REVIEW

JIMI HENDRIX “WEST COAST SEATTLE BOY”
By Richard Zeigler

Can there still be worthwhile Jimi Hendrix songs and outtakes that are worthy of release? Hasn’t that barrel already been scraped clean? The latest release from the Hendrix estate shows that Hendrix’ recorded output still contains gems that will please and surprise, and that the barrel (or is it barrels) have yet to be sufficiently plumbed. The four-disc West Coast Seattle Boy is chock-full of great Hendrix work, including a number of songs wherein Hendrix is the sideman rather than the leader. But a solid core is also contained on the similarly named single-disc release, which focuses on his 67-70 heyday. “Love Or Confusion” is simply a great Hendrix tune that could have gone on any of his albums to great effect. “Mr. Bad Luck” (previously bootlegged as “Waterfall”) is one of Hendrix’s finest songs, a swooning, languid guitar meditation. An instrumental version of “Are You Experienced” is superb. An acoustic version of The Band’s “Tears Of Rage” is fascinating, as is the compelling combo of “Bolero” and “Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)”. Overall, the sound and sequencing are absolutely top-notch, as the album flows nicely along as a stand-alone listening experience. Genius is genius, and this album shows once again that Hendrix merits that description. And if there’s more like this in those barrels, then keep it coming!

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BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN “THE PROMISE” Review

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN “THE PROMISE”
By Richard Zeigler

When Bruce Springsteen was writing songs for his follow-up to Born To Run, he also found himself mired in a three-year legal battle that prevented him from recording. When all was resolved, Springsteen issued Darkness On The Edge Of Town. As its title suggests, the album was comprised almost totally of downcast, hard-bitten songs (“Racing In The Street,” “Factory,” the title song), or edgy, gritty tales full of anger and angst (“Candy’s Room,” “Adam Raised A Cain”).  Nowhere to be found were the soaring, upbeat, sixties-influenced major-key celebrations that formed much of the core of Born To Run (and of his two previous records). As Springsteen has long said, this was intentional, as he did not want to release an “up” record at this juncture of his career. This did not mean that Springsteen had stopped writing such songs. Indeed, he gave away a number of then-recently written tunes (“Fire” to the Pointer Sisters, “Because The Night” to Patti Smith, to name two) that fit this mold. The Promise now reveals just how many such tunes Springsteen had written during this time. Although these songs were never considered “lost,” and they were also never intended to be a stand-alone album, The Promise can, indeed, be considered a “great lost album,” as the songs flow together to make for a beautiful and rewarding listening experience. (Indeed, these songs are so strong that, if they had been substituted for many of the upbeat numbers on The River that were rather pedestrian (e.g., “Ramrod,” anyone?), that album would have been considered a stone-cold classic).  Appropriately enough, the album starts with a different version of Darkness’s “Racing In The Street” (herein called “Racing In The Street ’78”) that is much more positive and hopeful in tone than the well-known Darkness version. Subtle alterations of the lyrics, as well as the addition of stately piano and nice harmonica and violin flourishes, change the mood substantially. Yet, this version of the song is nearly as strong as the original (some may even prefer it). Similarly, “Candy’s Boy” is a “soft and sweet” version of “Candy’s Room,” one of Darkness’s most gut-wrenching songs. The vast majority of this double-disc, however, is not about re-writes of tunes that were released, but simply about great, classic-sounding rock songs. Clarence Clemon’s saxophone, Roy Bittan’s great piano parts, Danny Federici’s organ and glockenspiel, and Max Weinberg’s heavy drum beats, are all here and all in service to great, memorable songs that nearly anybody else would kill to have written. While Springsteen admits to adding certain parts here and there to the original masters, he swears that these are only the things he would have done to the songs if he had decided to release them at the time. Regardless, with tunes such as “Ain’t Good Enough For You,” “Rendezvous” (originally given to pop-rocker Greg Kihn), “Save My Love,” “Gotta Get That Feeling”, “Talk To Me” (originally given to Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, Steven Van Zandt’s “other” band), or the Latin-tinged “Spanish Eyes,” among many others (21 songs in all),  The Promise is simply a great Springsteen album. The simultaneously released box set (simply called “Darkness On The Edge Of Town) also contains a remastered version of Darkness along with two concert DVDs (one from 2009, and a classic set from 1978) and a documentary. But it is The Promise that is a must-have for any Springsteen fan, and is a fine addition to his canon of work.

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RICHARD THOMPSON “DREAM ATTIC” Review

RICHARD THOMPSON “DREAM ATTIC”
By Rick Zeigler

Dream Attic is that rarest of beasts—a live album showcasing completely new material.
Not only that, you can barely tell that it IS a live album. There is little applause (a few fadeouts at the end of some songs), no stage banter, and no whoops & hollers from the audience. So why put out a live album that barely seems to be live? The answer is in the performances, which feature some of Thompson’s finest electric guitar work on record in the last thirty years. And that is saying something, for Thompson has long been one of rock’s finest guitar players. From his beginnings in Fairport Convention to his work with ex-wife Linda through to his monumental solo catalogue, Thompson has become a legend (at least in England) for his guitar abilities, be it acoustic or electric. But when recording new material over the last number of albums, Thompson has rarely let himself stretch out on his chosen instrument, focusing instead on putting across the melodies and lyrics of his storytelling. Dream Attic, however, is a somewhat different story. Recorded over three nights at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall, the storytelling is still present and accounted for. The album’s opener, “The Money Shuffle,” is Thompson’s acerbic take on the world’s recent financial turmoils, “Sidney Wells” is his latest contribution to the canon of English folk/murder ballads, and “Here Comes Geordie” is a jaunty, uptempo jig satirizing Sting’s pompousness (though the object of the song remains unnamed). Indeed, Thompson’s songwriting is as strong as ever, with no dregs among the thirteen selections on offer. And with the presence of Joel Zifkin on electric violin and Pete Zorn on a variety of (sometimes intrusive) saxophones, even the sololess cuts contain nice interplay between these instruments and Thompson’s guitar work. But make no mistake, the focus of Dream Attic is certainly on those songs on which Thompson takes off on his electric. The rocking “Haul Me Up,” is the first such cut on offer, wherein some nice violin and a catchy chorus gives way to a blazing solo that circles around the various melodies within the song. “Crimescene” starts off as a soft, slow ballad about another relationship gone sour, but eventually builds into a extended, hard-charging guitar trip into the darkness. The aforementioned “Sidney Wells” contains a beautiful electric solo that completely maintains the song’s English folk ambience, and album closer “If Love Whispers Your Name,” although slow of tempo, achieves a startling intensity during Thompson’s extended riffing. Well into his FIFTH DECADE as a performer, on Dream Attic Thompson shows that he, himself, is that rarest of beasts—the mature artist who can still spin out excellent new material and accompany it with absolutely riveting musical performances.

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