Neil Young and Crazy Horse spend much of their latest album Colorado rage, rage raging against the dying of the light. Nothing new there. They've spend their whole working careers doing the self-same thing since they first started working together in 1969. That they can do so still with such full on splenetic rage and fury and click at the flick of the switch to such deeply affecting sensitivity is great credit to all of them. This might not be the most coherent record you'll hear this year but it will almost certainly be one of the most sage and spirited.
It also has a hell of lot of fine songs on it. Perhaps the thirteen minute second track, She Showed Me Love is pushing things a bit. I'm sorry but I just don't have time to listen to a new thirteen minute track by Neil Young and Crazy Horse anymore, though I'm glad they're still churning them out. I tell a lie. I listened through to it the once so I don't have to listen to it again. Anyhow, there's much better elsewhere.
Like Green is Blue. a beautiful four minute lament for the imminent death of the world. Young has had a big crush on Mother Nature since he wrote After the Goldrush and he's as amorous as ever here. Or Shut it Down, which follows a similar ecological thread. but allows the guitars to rage and squall with the band's customary swagger. Milky Way , meanwhile is so good it would merit a place on a Greatest Hits collection. and this is Young and Crazy Horse we're talking here.
Colorado reworks plenty from the band's mammoth scrapbook of memories to fine effect. Young, Lofgren, Talbot and Molina is a pretty fine line up whichever way you look at it and they pool their shared resources here with admirable purpose. Together, they've forgotten more than most bands will ever know. That they still remember so much is remarkable. and on occasion here remarkably moving. Hats off to the grizzled masters. Still fuel in the tank.
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