Which Neil is it this time in 2005? Ah, acoustic countrified Neil. Time to sit back, relax and let the sunshine lull you into the ‘harvest’. It opens with the plaintive The Painter, featuring Neil Young’s acoustic and producer Ben Keith’s pedal steel touches over a very pleasant melody.
Many of the tracks echo Neil’s previous work. No Wonder opens a little like The Old Homestead (from Hawks & Doves) before evolving to become a more realized, fuller-sounding song, complete with fine electric guitar and fiddles. Falling Off The Face of the Earth is more muted, but has a strong melody. Unfortunately he revisits the soul territory mined on Are You Passionate? on Far From Home, He Was The King and the title track.
It’s A Dream is a piano-led almost sickly sweet ballad which narrowly avoids becoming total schmaltz, despite the syrupy strings, while the harmonica-led Here For You is almost Harvest pastiche, with acoustic, steel et al, all in the right places.
One of the finest tracks is This Old Guitar, which sounds like Harvest Moon (the song) on a comedown, all bleached out with Neil Young sounding parched, and the unmistakeable backing vocals of Emmylou Harris. The album ends with the hokey gospel of When God Made Me.
Far from essential but enjoyable.
Wrong about 'It's a dream'......it's a classic. It has a feeling of a painting from the impressionist era with vivid colours and evocative memories.The album itself is a slow burner that I now regularly and gladly return to.
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