After the lacklustre Are You Passionate, Neil Young regrouped with Crazy Horse for 2003’s Greendale, an album, DVD and book(!). This was billed as a ‘rock opera’. Good grief.
As it turns out there’s not a whole lot wrong with this album in theory. The guitar sound is as dirty as any Neil Young fan would desire. No, the problem is the cringey lyrics about Grandpa etc are accompanied by not particularly strong melodies, most of which go on FAR too long. There’s very little about opener Falling From Above’s growling riffs that couldn’t have been done in less than seven and a half minutes.
Leave The Driving is a more muted, midtempo, melancholic brand of Neil Young, again stretched to more than seven minutes. Carmichael has a nice growling riff though it is also too long (10 minutes!). The one acoustic track here, Bandit cleverly incorporates a buzzing string into the song with a very hushed vocal. It sounds very refreshing coming midway through this album, but unfortunately the album returns to the lengthy, characterless songs of before.
Special mention to Grandpa’s Interview for stretching a riff to almost 13 minutes. The pump-organ of Bringin’ Down Dinner isn’t bad either. However it’s an album that demands a lot of patience, even for the committed Neil Young fan.
No comments:
Post a Comment