Neil Young
Le Noise
When I first heard that Neil Young had collaborated with Daniel Lanois I was ecstatic. Young, the consummate working class musician, the Godfather of Grunge and the songwriter with the heart of gold being produced by the mercurial Lanois would surely be a combination that couldn’t fail. Or so you would think. But you would be wrong.
Instead of a monumental result, you get a minor work in both of their cannons. I can picture Neil Young standing in the studio with the Gibson Lucille strapped around his neck. I can hear him rocking the electric guitar back and forth trying to get every bit of reverb out of every note. I can picture Lanois sitting in the booth wearing the headphones nodding up and down with the crunching guitars and loop after loop of echo effects. I can see them both looking at each other and smiling at their efforts. Two self absorbed, multi talented artists, paying attention only to their egos.
Mind you this disc didn’t have to be this way. It is an interesting idea indeed to make a record with this much electric guitar and nary a drum. Young pulled it off brilliantly on Ragged Glory on the track “Mother Earth.” Twenty years ago it sounded fresh and original. But on Le Noise you get an entire disc of what sounds like demos. I kept waiting for the next track and to actually hear a whole song. But it never came.
Actually the disc isn’t entirely without merit. The opening track, “Walk with me” is a good effort as is “Love and war,” the latter track containing some truly haunting acoustic guitar work. “Angry World” is also worth a listen and if you were in to the single download thing these would be worth checking out.
On the other hand if I never hear “The Hitchhiker” ever again I would be OK. It rambles back and forth with some of the hokiest lyrics Young ever put down on paper. Yeah, “…my head did explode.”
I wouldn’t say this is a bad disc. I would instead say it is disappointing. It doesn’t sound complete. Even on some of the lesser tracks you can hear a bit of melody that should be expanded. You can hear an interesting echo that would make a nice addition to a whole song. And you hear a lot of things that were simply wasted. Here is hoping that these two musicians decide to try this again, only this time they should think to bring the rest of the band.