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. ****

Patterson Hood-"Heat Lightning Rumbles in the Distance"

       

    If Autumn is a time for reflection, then Patterson Hood's Heat Lightning Rumbles in the Distance is a record for the season. Music that sounds appropriate for a rainy, overnight road-trip alone. It has a low-key, quiet vibe, in comparison to the down-tuned twang 'n' roll of Hood's primary band, but that's not to say it's any less intense.
    Hood is one of the major forces behind Athens, Georgia's Drive-By Truckers .I must make a personal declaration in that no modern band of the past eight years has impacted me more than the Truckers. Despite the grim name, their music is deep. From 2002 to 2006, when the band featured the singer/songwriter/guitarist triad of Hood, Mike Cooley, and Jason Isbell, no other band could touch them in the world of raw roots rock/alt country/whatever, period!  Lineup changes and a couple of uneven records has made my interest wane just a hair in recent years, yet I always root for them and anticipate new material. DBT are seasoned road warriors and, to this day,  still capable of decimating live venues across the world    Hood dubbed the musicians on this record the Downtown Rumblers which, at it's core, is just four of the other five Truckers, with the fifth one still showing up to play banjo on two tracks. Yet, a whole host of other musicians float in and out of the sessions; CentroMatic's Will Johnson; a phenomenal fiddle player, Scott Danborn; Hood's father, David, a veteran of classic Muscle Shoals sessions, sits in on bass for two songs.
   The album opens ominously with "12:01" as Hood ruminates on the end of a relationship torn apart by all-night drinking and jamming with "these friends of mine-a bunch of lost cases just marking time". This is perhaps a time in Hood's youth, before DBT's conception, when he was first seduced by the mistress of music to the detriment of any women in his life. In the second track, "Leaving Time", and the last track, "Fifteen Days(Leaving Time Again)", he addresses sort-of that same issue, but in the present. Hood, now a husband and father, must leave for yet another tour, in spite of his family's dismay.
   . Then it gets moody. "(untold pretties)", is a spoken word piece set to music, an excerpt from Hood's unpublished novel, Slam Dancing in the Pews. It feels like a random page. I can't get a complete hold on what the song is actually about, Memories of a high-school sweetheart melt into memories of his grandfather's funeral. But it doesn't really matter. Sometimes, Hood's brilliance is in the images he creates-"the sky was as grey as an open chord and as plaintive as fog in black and white"-and those curious little details-"where that lady from the Sunbeam bread wrapper was killed head-on back when I was little". I can get lost in this, and I can't wait until he finishes his novel..
    "Come Back Little Star" is another highlight, a song co-written by Kelly Hogan and dedicated to the late singer/songwriter, Vic Chesnutt, who took his own life in 2009. The back-up vocals from Hogan are a definite plus, but it's that d-tuned, lumbering guitar riff toward the end that sends it to the stars for me.
    The title track is the cornerstone. I love this: "the old oak's gone and the house is falling down, But the ghosts are a comfort to me, Ghosts of my family and time that's moved on, The changing of the old guard to new, Standing here in the days final light, Strong beside you". This is good too: "the night slowly creeps by as I hold myself together, Somewhere between anguish and acceptance". Those lines speak for themselves. Nuff said.
   Hood has never written songs this personal for the Truckers, at least not this many on one album. Yet, he doesn't spell it all out, and I think that's an advantage. There is some lighter fare as well. Still, Heat Lightning is haunted by the past (lovers, dead friends, innocence) but there's an uneasy reconciliation and eventual movement towards contentment. These days, it seems like every serious artist has to make a "dark" record to gain credibility. But I wouldn't say Heat Lightning dwells in darkness.On it's own terms, it shows you the way out. ****

 (Catch Patterson Hood with the Drive-By Truckers Oct. 21st at the Bluebird in Bloomington.)