What the bloody hell is Neil Young playing at? The other day I listened to his first album of 2012 and found it a challenging and rather peculiar experience. Now he, and Crazy Horse (his partners in crime for many decades) have released a second album. This one, called Psychedelic Ball,is even more peculiar and unexpected than was As I wrote the other day, one doesn’t really expect Neil Young to do anything except the unexpected. I certainly wasn’t expecting to hear something, which in all its ragged glory (if you will excuse the pun) is the nearest thing to a classic Neil Young album that I have heard in years. In fact there are bits of it which ring the same bells and push the same buttons (to me at any rate) as do albums like Rusty Never Sleeps, and On the Beach. In 2012 to open with a song with dreadful feedback and over 20 minutes long is nothing short of idiosyncratic, but it works. This album has all the tunes and textures that one has always wanted from classic Neil Young. In his recent autobiography he claims that some months before writing it, he had given up alcohol and marijuana. This album sounds so much like a stoned masterpiece that I would love to know whether it was recorded pre- or post-abstinence.
Mr Young; long may you run!
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