God bless Neil Young. At 62, he's as earnest as ever - supremely confident in his well-worn niche. In 2007, it takes some kind of self-assurance to sing, without a hint of irony: "I'm just a passenger / On this old freight train."
For the last 40 years, Young has alternated with almost stunning regularity between country-inflected acoustic ballads and gritty electric numbers. On the new Chrome Dreams II, he manages to virtually shrink this whole history into ten songs.
Anchoring the entire project is the paean to the working classes, "Ordinary People." An 18-minute rabble-rouser in the vein of past epics "Cortez the Killer" and "Rockin' in the Free World," the track captivates with an almost perfect balance between horn-driven chorus and ragged guitar solo. That Young and co. recorded it in a single take should hint at an unusually fertile working relationship.
But such promise would be misplaced. Most of these tracks were recorded live in the studio - another stubborn Young-ism. For all the skill of his collaboraters, some of these songs emerge stillborn. On the truly awful "Dirty Old Man," the lyrics and delivery belie any possible hope of humor or self-reference; the backup vocals don't match Young's lead or its pitch. The whole affair smacks of routine, the "by the numbers," guess-the-next-rhyme style that's defined his career lowlights.
Yet Young proves his relevance when he takes these traditional pieces and breaks them apart, as on the otherwise repetitive "Revolution Blues:" "They say that Laurel Canyon is filled with famous stars / But I hate them worse than lepers and I'll kill them in their cars." Chrome Dreams II has a few such moments - the best, perhaps, being closer "The Way" where Young sings a kind of lullaby backed by a children's choir.
The II of the title refers to an original Chrome Dreams that Young ultimately abandoned in the 1970s. If the gesture means anything, it's that he's determined to repeat the past, with all its breathtaking heights and cringeworthy lows.
