Neil Young and Crazy Horse – Colorado – Album Review
by Killian Laher

At this stage, 39 albums in, Neil Young just does whatever the hell he wants.  Here he reunites with the lumbering, noisy beast of a band Crazy Horse.  Anyone familiar with Young’s more recent albums, which have been arriving with increasing regularity, will have a fair idea what to expect here.  Opener Think of Me is an easy strum that you’ll be sure you’ve heard before, you’ll be scratching your head trying to place the chord sequence elsewhere in his catalogue (2000’s Buffalo Springfield Again possibly?).  Songs like Olden Days and Shut It Down see the controls set to mid-paced, and they suit Neil Young and Crazy Horse very well.  Milky Way is a more subdued variant of this, something along the lines of 1994’s Sleeps With Angels album.  One thing Neil Young could always do well was tenderness, the album features croaky piano ballads Green Is Blue and Eternity.  He waits till closer I Do to pull out his trusty acoustic guitar, which is Neil in classic love song mode.  There’s a good chance if you like any of his quieter material, you’ll like these too.

And if it’s noise workouts you’re after, there are a couple here, though it’s unlikely any of them will attain the classic status of Down by the River, Cortez the Killer etc. She Showed Me Love has a decent chord sequence but Young’s ‘speak/sing’ vocal about how “he saw old white guys trying to kill mother nature” are clunky to say the least.  And this is stretched out over thirteen and a half minutes.  Help Me Lose My Mind has him barking out vocals over more distorted chords… you get the picture, though this one finishes after four minutes.  Rainbow of Colors is like an old American folk tune set to lumbering distortion which sounds like it was more fun to play than for us to listen to.

The casual fan probably doesn’t need to go out of their way to acquire this one, it’s as hit and miss as any of his albums of recent years, and ultimately I suspect there’s little here that will stand the test of time.

Track List –
1. Think of Me
2. She Showed Me Love
3. Olden Days
4. Help Me Lose My Mind
5. Green Is Blue
6. Shut It Down
7. Milky Way
8. Eternity
9. Rainbow of Colors
10. I Do

Milky Way