REVIEW: NEIL YOUNG - BEFORE AND AFTER

4/5

Young and Old.

Digging through crates to make his catalogue heavier than Sears, for years Neil Young has been officially releasing previously bootlegged albums, and reissuing some of his finest work. Now, in the same week The Killers turn in some 'Rebel Diamonds' for a new greatest hits package to unwrap this Christmas, Neil Young gives us another best of...with a twist. 'Before and After', the 45th studio album from the Canadian-American, singer-songwriter and Reprise records, is exactly that. An acoustic re-take and recording of some of his past songs. 13 to be exact. Lucky for us. Scrawling chalk on the sidewalk for this artwork, Young paves the way like He Who Remains to a new one. Mere months after taking us to London, England and Tokyo, Japan with his 'Odeon Budokan' via the Hammersmith and Nippon. The trilogy of 'I'm The Ocean'/'Homefires'/'Burned' keeps those ones as such, singling this retrospective re-recording out in promotion. 

Conceived by Young and producer Lou Alder, this here and now from way back when is a "trip into musical history" with a tour guide who uses his great Canadian-American songbook as a road map. Epic and eclectic, it gives lesser known relics from the vault a new craft and curation worthy of their own gallery as he repaints his masterpiece. After the big-three EP, this album intended to be listened to in its entirety in a single setting is actually just one track, 48-minutes long without interruption. "A music montage with no beginnings or endings" says the man himself. The same could be said for the everlasting harvest of Neil Young's career we hope never meets the moon.

Harvesting some of his most wonderful work over the last couple of years that has kept me company and from being lonely in this Japanese journey, Young makes us feel forever that with the Gibson, even in our older years. After he keeps the 'Homefires', 'Burned', Neil finds himself 'On The Way Home' like the 'Last Time Around'. But it's 'If You Got Love' that really resonates. "When you walk in a room/You hold your head up high/You talk to people eye to eye/There's nothing to hide/You're feeling so complete inside/Your heart feels so complete inside/Because you got love", he sings beautifully in his trademark register like the Cat Stevens words of wisdom from a father to a son, for not only the most legendary lyrics of these lines, but his legacy as a whole. 

This is how he 'Sleeps With Angels' on 'A Dream That Can Last', riding to the glory on a Crazy Horse, singing, "All the lights were turned down low/And no one wondered or had to go/Out on the corner the angels say/There is a better life for me someday/I feel like I died and went to heaven/The cupboards are bare, but the streets are paved with gold." This and 'My Heart' of the 'Angels' is all for the 'Birds' like following the 'Gold Rush'. But we ask 'Are You Passionate', 'When I Hold You In My Arms'? This Young man certainly is, brooding like a shopfront to let, "New buildings going up, old buildings going down/New signs going up, old signs coming down/You got to hold on to something in this life." Times and hands may change, but when it comes to the one you hold closest, the heart of matters never does.

"Oh, freedom land, can you let this go?/Down to the streets where the numbers grow/Respect Mother Earth and Her giving ways/Or trade away our children's days/Or trade away our children's days", once more with feeling, Neil Young sings for 'Mother Earth', like a deeper and darker 'Earth Song' from Michael Jackson. We didn't way back then, but will we heed the re-recorded warning called out now? On this classically curated collection, 'Mr. Soul' rides with Buffalo Springfield again. Yet it 'Comes A Time' that this album title-track needs to be heard again in a whole new, calming acoustic light. Capturing it all in the words of, "You and I, we were captured/We took our souls, and we flew away/We were right, we were giving/That's how we kept what we gave away/Oh, this old world keeps spinnin' 'round/It's a wonder tall trees ain't layin' down/There comes a time", before an inspired instrumental break. 

And before this one comes to an end in the after, here we have, 'Don't Forget Love' to remember in parting. The Crazy Horse dragging an unbridled heart away as best it could like a Rolling Stone wild one. Steed singing, again and again, "don't forget love" like, "When you're angry, and you're lashing out, don't forget love/You don't know what you're talking about, don't forget love/When the wind blows through the crime scene and the TV man starts talking fast, don't forget love." We may argue, but our hearts our the glue that keeps all this together. Tying together his hits and the lesser known gems from his jewel cases, before this, Neil was a legend, after this, Young's legacy will only get greater. There's a rich body of work here that's fully fleshed out as he drops the needle. This reissue is his freshest take yet. You've never heard these afterthoughts like this before. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Playlist Picks: 'If You Got Love', 'When I Hold You In My Arms', 'Mother Earth'.