Neil Young & Crazy Horse "Psychedelic Pill"

     Early in the year, when I heard that Neil Young was recording with Crazy Horse again, I felt a mixture of skepticism and hope. Ever since 1990's truly great Ragged Glory, the band has suffered through too many lukewarm affairs and left-field oddities. If you cherry-picked the best songs from Sleeps With Angels, Broken Arrow, and Greendale, you might get an album length playlist, maybe. Americana, the album of folk standards that came out earlier in 2012, was no exception for me. One might have better luck extracting from the two or three live albums that have been released in the interim. Even though some of those performances might be weak, ( but a true gem is the 13 minute, quasi-doom metal "Danger Bird" on Year of the Horse)  they're still decent examples of what Neil & Crazy Horse do best: gargantuan, lumbering rhythm section, Neil's Old Black guitar spewing fractured, free-form leads, all weaved into a tapestry of sonics that sound equally trashed-out garage and spiritually-enlightened outdoor amphitheater.
    Psychedelic Pill is a sprawling, brilliant mess of a record, it's mess being part of it's charm. It resembles the roaming and exploring Crazy Horse that is their live m.o. If they're a jam band, they're from a different order. It has nothing to do with technical (and, as is often the case, sterile) virtuosity but pure, unvarnished transcendence. The path they choose is full of struggle and fury. Lyrically, Psychedelic Pill can be hokey, redundant, or so off-the-cuff that verses spill over. Yet, it doesn't matter. The music speaks the loudest.
   "Driftin Back" is a daunting opener for an album, as it clocks in at about 27 minutes. After awhile a texture of sound emerges that's enthralling. Neil is beyond disillusioned with the world, to the point of detached intonation. He half-mumbles about corporate greed, art as commodity, and the poor quality of mp3s, to the point where he declares he's "gonna get a hip hop haircut".
       Another epic is "Ramada Inn" which tells a story of a couple held captive by memories and alcohol. That's unimportant, once again. The twilight, skyward guitar passages are the forefront. While Neil's singing is a necessity,  like an anchor to the extensive jamming, I don't pay much regard as to what he's actually saying. Yet the repeat line "he loves her so" feels warm and impassioned.
      .The shorter tracks here give the album contrast. On "Born in Ontario", Neil's spirit seems a bit brighter, yet he offers "when things go wrong, I pick up a pen, and scribble on a page, try to make sense of my inner rage". That chunky barnyard sound could've been lifted from side 2 of Harvest. Two versions of the title track are represented here, the proper one being the most effective, in all of it's fader-drenched glory. "Twisted Road" is the nostalgia-themed song Young has written a handful of times, but somehow never gets old. "For the Love of Man" is a sort-of eulogy and from the title you can probably guess what it's all about. He's written similar (and better) songs like this as well. "Mother Earth" from Ragged Glory and "Natural Beauty" from Harvest Moon come to mind.
      Just when things seem to be winding down, "Walk Like a Giant" blasts forth with so much titanic, head-rush intensity, that the first time I heard it, my skin turned cold. An enormous wall of sound pushes deep into the red and Old Black unleashes it's final, visceral attack. Anyone else lamenting the death of 60's ideals would seem cliche as hell these days, but, on this song, I buy it wholeheartedly without blinking an eye. Yet, it's also a reclamation of those ideals. The line "I used to walk like a giant on the land" alternates to "want to.." This is the one track here where Young's words hold as much weight as the music. The song slowly disintegrates and, after 12 minutes, devolves into neanderthal plodding followed by a minute of full-on dissonance. "Walk Like a Giant" is a new Crazy Horse classic, as good as anything they've done in the post-Danny Whitten era.
      Psychedelic Pill is audacious and unapologetic in every way, for it's unhinged tone and theme, length, even track sequence. It almost feels like a smug response to fans, as if Neil's saying. "You want a real Crazy Horse album? Well, here it is!" Those people will not be disappointed. Neophytes to this side of the Young equation could find more accessible entry points. But if you must, shuffling the song order might help. "Walk Like a Giant" feels like it was tailor-made to be an album opener. ****