{"id":1372,"date":"2016-12-09T11:44:47","date_gmt":"2016-12-09T16:44:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/?p=1372"},"modified":"2016-12-09T11:44:47","modified_gmt":"2016-12-09T16:44:47","slug":"new-release-roundup-neil-young-on-the-peace-trail-morphine-documentary-on-dvd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/2016\/12\/09\/new-release-roundup-neil-young-on-the-peace-trail-morphine-documentary-on-dvd\/","title":{"rendered":"New Release Roundup: Neil Young on the Peace Trail, Morphine Documentary on DVD"},"content":{"rendered":"

MUSIC <\/strong>
\n1. Neil Young<\/a> \u2013 Peace Trail<\/em>
\nThere is something both comforting and unsettling about Neil Young\u2019s signature overdriven electric guitar sound, that pinched blast of feedback and echo, the rambling improvised melodies. It permeates your head and rattles your ribcage. Against the backdrop of his warm acoustic sound, it\u2019s like watching a spectacular thunderstorm from your favorite chair by the fire. That\u2019s a big part of the appeal of Peace Trail<\/em>. It\u2019s a hybrid of Crazy Horse\u2019s ragged glory and the folksier sounds from Harvest<\/em> or his earlier stuff. There\u2019s even a little bit of Trans<\/em> in there, in the Cher-like auto-tuned treatment of the background vocals on \u201cMy Pledge\u201d and the second half of \u201cMy Robot,\u201d a kind of goofy satire on technology. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a mix lyrically, too. Young had never shied away from political messages, and there are plenty of them here, about the treatment of Native Americans in \u201cIndian Giver,\u201d organized workers fighting police in \u201cJohn Oaks,\u201d references to battles over water and land. But he\u2019s always had a more oblique side. Young critiques xenophobia on \u201cTerrorist Suicide Hang-Gliders\u201d with imagery on par with \u201cLast Trip to Tulsa.\u201d \u201cTerrorist suicide hang-gliders,\u201d he sings, \u201cIn the sky above you can\u2019t see\/Hidden there in the darkness\/Behind the reasons that you\u2019re free.\u201d Young can sometimes be painfully on the nose when he addresses politics, but here he is telling stories or writing in an impressionistic way, methods that let you feel what he\u2019s trying to say as much as hear it. That approach tends to land better with me. <\/p>\n

Young is ably accompanied by Jim Keltner (one of the best in the business, and his playing is subtle but crucial here) on drums and Paul Bushnell on bass. Everything else is all Neil. The acoustic guitar, the electric guitar (which so closely matches the acoustic parts in some cases it sounds like he may have split the signal and distorted one and kept the other clean), and the fuzzed-out harmonica. Simple, with some experimental tweaking here and there. <\/p>\n

The best thing about following Young\u2019s career is that he\u2019s always tinkering, and he\u2019ll always go wherever the ideas take him. This album was reportedly recorded over four days, and true to Young\u2019s work ethic, it\u2019s mostly first and second takes. None of it sounds terribly premeditated. It\u2019s all straight from his head to your ears, and the next thing is probably already brewing in there somewhere. There are any number of sounds Neil Young could settle into comfortably and just sail into the sunset of his career. But as he says on the title track, \u201cAin\u2019t taken my last hit yet\/I know things are different now\/I see the same old signs\/But something new is growin\u2019.\u201d
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\n“Peace Trail” <\/strong>
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