Neil Young - Storytone

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Neil Young back to his best

I'm delighted to say that I think this is a terrific album from Neil Young. After A Letter Home, which I still can't listen to without wincing, he has produced a real gem, I think.

My advice is to make sure you get the Deluxe Version, which includes a disc of all ten songs sung as a solo set with just Neil and his guitar or keyboard and some harmonica, as well as the same set in arrangements with a band or large orchestra and chorus (sometimes both). I really like both discs; they are similar in mood in some places and quite different in others (Say Hello To Chicago, for instance, sounds like two completely different songs), but the songs work very well in both arrangements.

The key to this album's quality is some very, very fine songwriting which shows most clearly in the solo set. It opens with Plastic Flowers, with just piano and Neil's voice. It's a song about how he lost a love as a young man and has some great lyrics, like "I showed plastic flowers to Mother Nature's daughter." It's very beautiful and very affecting. Other songs like Glimmer, I'm Glad I Found You and When I Watch You Sleeping are just as good: simple, tender, heartfelt and genuinely moving. It's one aspect of Neil Young at his very best. Other songs are more eco-warrior in content, but the overall tone of the album is of mellow reflection on love and life's experience.

Neil's voice sounds a little older and more wavery in places, but that's just fine with me, and his performances here are excellent. He really means every word as he lays his heart on the line for us, and musically he's on fine form - especially in the solo set he plays and sings with real sincerity and a simplicity and grace which masks the great skill needed to make a set like this shine with the quality this one has.

Having listened a lot I think I marginally prefer the solo set, but that's just my personal taste. It's all very good indeed (and Who's Gonna Save The World sounds just sensational as a huge production number) so you may disagree.

Heaven knows what Neil will give us next - he's quite capable of making an album of popular showtunes played on the didgeridoo and recorded on a wax cylinder (just joking, Neil - *please* don't), but for now I'm thoroughly enjoying this very fine album (probably among his best in my view) and I recommend it very warmly indeed.